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Boston Collaborative for Food & Fitness
Staff
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Karen A. Spiller, Project Director
 Karen brings with her over twenty years of experience in program development and training, resource development, health education, health promotion and healthcare research. Karen is committed to creating sustainable systems to ensure the optimal health and quality of life for all and residents. Coupled with her strong commitment to social justice while addressing health inequities is why she has remained close and committed to the creation and continued work of BCFF.
Karen has worked with a broad diversity of stakeholders in Massachusetts, including community residents and businesses, state and local agencies, policy makers, corporations, foundations, community-based organizations, schools and physicians. This experience, particularly in the areas of health promotion and relationship building across disciplines, anchors her contributions as a health educator and advocate.
As a member of the Disparities Leadership Program inaugural class (a program of Massachusetts General Hospital’s Disparities Solution Center), Karen has helped to the develop quality and culturally competent programs in community and corporate settings.
Karen is also actively involved with national public health organizations. She has served as a Trustee of the Society for Public Health Education (SOPHE) since 2007 and has taken a leadership role in the SOPHE chapter development nationwide.
Karen serves on city and statewide committees, advisory boards, and initiatives on health education, youth leadership, and community health such as the Communities Putting Prevention to Work, Massachusetts Wellness Promotion Advisory Board and the Mattapan Food & Fitness Coalition. She has also proudly served as a member of the Board of Directors of The Food Project, The Women’s Lunch Place, Massachusetts Federation of Farmers Markets, the Massachusetts African American Heritage Bike Route and Heading Home.
For more than four years at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, Karen was a Program Manager for Jump Up & Go! ®, a multidimensional campaign addressing childhood obesity. Karen oversaw the clinical and community-based aspects of the program, created programming and actively served on several cross-functional teams within Blue Cross and externally.
Karen is a graduate of Western Michigan University and has begun graduate study toward a Master's Degree in Public Health at Boston University.
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José F. Massó, Project Manager
 José brings fifteen years of experience in youth work, community outreach, leadership development, community organizing, coalition building, grassroots marketing, sports training and coaching in the areas of swimming and basketball.
José has worked with a diverse group of sectors, including healthcare, government, education, youth development, food systems, social services, community development corporations, community based organizations, businesses and residents.
He has participated in Certified Training Programs in Building Communities from the Inside Out, Fundamentals of Community Organizing, Food Safety Workshop, Undoing Racism, NeighborCircles Facilitation Training, Physiological First Aid & Post Traumatic Stress Management, Advanced Training in Violence Prevention and Homicide Response, Leadership Development and School Safety Summit.
José’s experience as a youth outreach worker allowed him to establish relationships with proven-risk youth from multiple areas. As their advocate, he was also able to identify, refer and provide necessary resources to youth as needed including appropriate health care and healthy lifestyle activities. Weekly, he would bring a group of young people to a local community center so they could engage in sports, weight training, and swimming.
Within his role as community organizer, one of his responsibilities was to manage two weekly food pantries in Roxbury that served local residents and the community at large. It was within this experience that he was able to focus on the importance of preventing hunger and providing food security for families in need.
José also participated in the Jamaica Plain Youth Health Equity Collaborative, which was a group of youth, health care, education, housing, and youth serving organizations, that met for over a year to focus on six social determinant areas that impact young people who live, work, and play in Jamaica Plain. These social determinant areas included food and fitness, health care, housing, education, employment and safety.
His personal and professional interests include organized sports and community service. He is a certified lifeguard, swim instructor and has coached youth swim teams throughout the City of Boston. He also coaches youth basketball teams in the Jamaica Plain Community Center’s Youth basketball league. He actively serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the Franklin Park Coalition.
José is a graduate of UMass Boston and lives with his wife and daughters in Mattapan.
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| Jennifer Obadia, Farmers' Market Coordinator
 It is with great pleasure that I join the Boston Collaborative Food and Fitness in the capacity of Farmers Market Coordinator. I am honored to work with the Collaborative’s partners and community member across Boston to support and enhance the farmers markets of Boston. So, who am I? I have just completed my doctorate in Nutrition from the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. For the last three years, I have worked with farmers markets in Massachusetts in various capacities. I conducted my dissertation research on the efficacy of markets from the farmer and consumer perspectives. I have provided technical assistance to market managers while working at the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources. Finally, I’ve conducted community outreach and facilitated group dialogue around the goals for Boston farmers markets as chair of BCFF’s Farmers Market Working Group.
Boston is home to 26 diverse farmers markets. We have large downtown markets that serve a broad customer base and smaller neighborhood markets that serve specific communities. It is through this series of markets that BCFF is working to enhance access to local, fresh and healthy food for Boston residents.
To support this goal our summer intern, Inna Komarovsky, designed a new section of the website for market managers. It is a one-stop-shop for all the information needs of Boston market managers. But this is just a start. During the off-season BCFF will work with markets to create a bold advertising campaign that will enhance customer traffic for the 2012 season. We will also be taking over management of the Boston Bounty Bucks program, ensuring that Boston markets maintain the ability to offer a dollar-for-dollar match to SNAP participants in the coming season.
In the coming months, I’ll be spending many hours thinking about how to enhance Boston farmers markets, but many minds are better than one. Have any suggestions about how to improve farmers markets in Boston? Ideas about how to improve food access more broadly? Send me an email at Jennifer.obadia@tufts.edu. I look forward to hearing from you! | |
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