Honoring Your Gift is a pilot collaboration between the University of Arizona Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, Freedoms Gate Ministries, and Ministerios Getsemani.  The project offers a program of health promotion strategies targeting specific modifiable risk factors for heart disease in multiethnic southwest Tucson. Freedoms Gate Ministries and Ministerios Getsemani will provide the supportive environment for the intervention.  This church-based intervention addresses the common heart risk factors shared by residents of this community across ethnic groups: physical inactivity, poor nutrition, diabetes, and high blood pressure.  Residents of this community will be recruited into the program, regardless of their church or religious affiliations.  Family participation will be encouraged. African American, American Indian, and Latino American ethnic groups are experiencing increasing incidence and prevalence of heart disease. Honoring Your Gift will center on the risk factors of heart disease, which is the number one cause of death for all population groups in the United States. The program, Honoring Your Gift, teaches the value of taking care of ones body and preventing heart disease through a twelve week intervention for changing eating behavior,  increasing physical activity and managing stress through health instruction, demonstrations and applications of food preparation, walking and dance, prayer and meditation.

Program aims are:

1. To conduct a baseline assessment designed to describe the health indices and health behaviors related to modifiable risk factors for heart disease among multi-ethnic study participants in a southwest Tucson church-based program.
2. To assist program participants in achieving healthful modifications in behaviors that are associated with heart health through a culturally relevant church-based
3. To explore changes in health indices such as blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar, and health behaviors (diet, physical activity, and stress management) among the Honoring Your Gift program participants.