Richard W. Rodriguez
It was her grandmothers, Brenda Patton says, who nurtured her passion for caring for others and doing good for her neighbors.
“They were bold, persistent, and fearless women who built families with very little,” she says, adding that they also instilled in her the belief that “hard things are always possible.”
Like, for example, equitable food access.
Patton is the Program Director of Policy for Blue Zones Project Fort Worth, an initiative under the umbrella of North Texas Healthy Communities, a nonprofit outreach arm of Texas Health that facilitates community well-being improvement initiatives. She is charged with improving Fort Worth’s well-being by advancing policies that relate to healthy food access.
She calls time on the Nutrition Taskforce with SteerFW as pivotal to her drive. The objective was to improve school lunches for students.
“Discovering that some students lacked access to basic, healthy choices — and knowing that their nutrition was often dictated by the ZIP code they lived in — lit a fire in me. I knew I couldn’t sit on the sidelines. This experience solidified my commitment to creating lasting, equitable changes in food access.”
Favorite quote: "Be the change you want to see and take action.”