We’re excited to share that the Community Incubator Network (KIN) project is officially underway!
KIN is a collaborative effort between the UC San Diego’s Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science (HWSPH) and the Center for Community Health (CCH) and the YMCA of San Diego County and the San Diego Childhood Obesity Initiative (SDCOI) Community Council. Funded by the American Heart Association, KIN is designed to advance food access for all through community-driven research.
To kick-off the project, all partners came together for a two-day in-person retreat at the Toby Wells YMCA on January 14–15, 2025. This gathering was special –it was the first time the full team met in person to build relationships, align on values, and lay the groundwork for our shared efforts. We focused not only on what we aim to accomplish, but also on how we want to get there: by aligning with community priorities and reimagining how communities and academic institutions collaborate.
The KIN project includes three core components:
- a community-led granting program that funds community priorities
- an academic-led scientific methods program to support community-led grants
- and a postdoctoral training program focused on community-driven research
Since the retreat, a key focus has been working closely with the Next of KIN Sub-Committee (NOK)—a project-specific subgroup within the SDCOI Community Council—to co-design the community-led granting program. We’ve also been collaborating to deepen our understanding of community-driven research, and the types of support communities may be seeking from the methods program. We’re excited to continue exploring strategies to advance community-driven research and, through this process, aim to develop a replicable playbook that other partnerships can use to implement similar programs.
One of the first foundational steps was establishing a shared definition of what “advancing food access for all” means within the context of the KIN granting program. To guide this, we drew on a definition developed by the SDCOI Community Council, based on Streetwyze data reflecting 8,000 stories from over 1,500 San Diego County residents.
To deepen this understanding, we hosted a two-part food access workshop featuring speakers Blanca Melendrez and Elle Mari (CCH), and Consuelo Martinez and Lakisha McZeal (San Diego Food System Alliance). These discussions helped shape a working definition that will inform the development of the granting program. We’re now in the process of building out the program in more detail—and we look forward to sharing more soon!
A dedicated KIN webpage will launch shortly on the CCH website. In the meantime, for more information, please reach out to Zyna Bakari, KIN Granting Program Director, at [email protected].
