For this week’s much-needed Joy Beat, GBH’s All Things Considered turned to our listener nominations and found a gem of an organization in the central Massachusetts communities of Gardner and Winchendon: the HEAL Collaborative. Here’s what one listener had to say:

“The HEAL Collaborative is working on community building, on food security, on bringing people together. I can’t tell you how wonderful — I love this group of women. I have volunteered because it’s so wonderful.”

HEAL stands for Hope, Empowerment, Access and Love, but at its core, it’s about community. HEAL is a resident-led initiative that tackles deep-rooted societal challenges with an all-hands-on-deck approach.

Miranda Jennings, program manager of the HEAL Collaborative, joined GBH’s All Things Considered host Arun Rath to share more about the work they do within the community. What follows is a lightly edited transcript of their conversation.

Arun Rath: Let’s start at the roots. HEAL is a collaborative — that means that it’s a lot of people. We were talking just before we started recording about all the people that make up HEAL, so start off by talking about everyone involved in the collaborative.

Miranda Jennings: Absolutely. Yeah, HEAL is not an organization or a project. We like to refer to it as a movement. It is a collaborative, and it’s really not so much about what we’re doing but about how we do it, and that is rooted in who is doing the work.

It’s made up of a team of resident leaders — people from Winchendon and Gardner — who are experiencing a lot of the issues that we’re working to address. It’s made up of youth leaders. We have an amazing team of teenagers who are at the helm, leading this work. And then, those two groups of residents and youth work with the leaders of our key anchor institutions in our communities, including the hospital, the public and private schools, and our local and municipal governments.

We work on a steering committee, and we’re modeling how people of all different walks of life and people who typically don’t hold power can work side-by-side with people who do hold power to make sure that the change we’re creating is really led and representative of those who are impacted and experience the issues.

Rath: What was the spark that ignited this, that brought the movement together?

Jennings: Back in 2017 — I’m from Winchendon, which is this tiny little town in Massachusetts that I had never heard of before I lived there — but we lost our only grocery store back in 2018. Winchendon is a food desert, as well as a food swamp, although we’re coming out of that, which is really exciting. That was a real crisis for a lot of us. So a bunch of residents, including myself, came together and said, “What can we do?”

We really didn’t know [the answer], but we had known of these organizations that were also concerned with this. So, this partnership blossomed where we had local residents and organizations working together. Winchendon has one of the highest rates of chronic illness that’s related to nutrition because of our lack of access to healthy, fresh food, so we were like, “Let’s build a grocery store. That will solve all the problems.”

While that is a huge part of it, we quickly realized that the grocery store was just the tip of the iceberg. It wasn’t about building a grocery store only — it was looking at what the economics are that prevent people from being able to access healthy food, even if there was a grocery store. Why can’t a small business grocery store thrive in our town? What’s going on with our local economy? Even deeper than that, why can’t people address these issues and the people who are impacted by the issues?

We started to look at issues of racism, of inclusion, of who’s at the table. You know, there were no youth-led initiatives, really. That’s how HEAL was born — that we needed to focus not just on food, but on the food economics and the social inclusion piece of it.

Rath: Could you explain the 80-20 approach and how HEAL works?

Jennings: Yeah, absolutely. It’s complicated, but I think what’s so great about HEAL is that really deep change is complicated. We’re not just addressing things on a charity level and addressing symptoms, which is important — I also direct a food pantry, and that’s essential. But if we’re looking to address the root cause of problems, it’s complicated, and it takes time.

That brings up the 80-20 approach, where 80% of a person’s health is not determined by the medical facilities — going to the hospital, medicine and things like that. It’s determined by their access to healthy food, by the spaces they have to live and play in — are those healthy spaces? Are they able to socialize? A lot of our seniors, their mental health and well-being are compromised because they don’t have transportation to get out to go places or to go to a grocery store.

Our health is really determined by the social determinants of health, which have nothing to do, really, with medicine. It has to do with our social environment — that includes economics, healthy food access and social inclusion. So, we set out to really address those root causes. We call it an “upstream approach.” We’re looking at what is happening in our river of life that is causing these issues, and that’s hard for a group of residents who are busy, youth who are in school, who have sports, families and jobs. It’s a big ask to get people to do that.

Typically, those who are volunteering have the luxury of time, and it’s not typically people who are actually impacted by the issues, so HEAL is unique in that we have this fantastic team. We’re really coming together to look at those root causes, and it takes time. Change takes years, and we’ve been working on this for seven years now, and it is incredible to see the pulse change in Winchendon. You can just feel the difference, as well as experience the difference. It’s really cool and inspiring for regular people to see how they can make a big change.

Rath: I’m no expert on community movements and organizing, so could you tell me if this is as unique as it sounds — bringing together the different groups and coalitions as you have in this way?

Jennings: It is. None of us are experts in that either; I think that’s important. You know, I’ve been in nonprofit work my whole career, basically, and I’ve seen a lot of really grandiose, wonderful projects that look good on paper — you know, “We’re going to involve the community,” and yada yada. But it really doesn’t.

It’s those projects that typically kind of dwindle out after a couple of years, whereas this is — I always tell people — this is the real deal. Like, we actually are doing this, and the people are really leading this. It’s really incredible. Our youth, when they started, there were only four of them, and now we have a team of 15, and now they’ve created an official youth council in the local government.

That will live on forever, and their voices and power are now embedded in our local government. It’s very authentic, it’s a lot of work, but I think it’s really inspiring because it’s actually working.

Rath: Are there any — I’m sure it’s probably more than a few — empowerment or success stories that really have stuck with you from the last few years?

Jennings: Oh, yes. There are many. I think one, speaking about the youth, is just the immense change that they’ve been able to have on so many levels. As I mentioned, they came to this thinking like, “We need more town pride, and we need more spaces for teens and job experience.”

By partnering with our local organizations, they’ve been able to write grants. They started out by writing a grant to get some equipment to run a mobile cafe, and it has grown into an actual cafe in a local nonprofit called the Winchendon CAC Community Hub, which is a renovated bowling alley. Come check it out! It’s this amazing space that now houses this teen cafe and a local makers hub and youth workforce program, as well as a food pantry, social services and a local thrift store.

It’s kind of this hub where all of these resources can benefit the community, but the teens are there running these spaces. They’re running the cafe, and they’re figuring out how to run a business. They’re running free teen nights. They’ve just transformed the opportunities and spaces in their community. It’s just, like, a snowball effect.

If you’d like to make a nomination for the Joy Beat, leave us a voicemail at (617) 300 - BEAT [2328].