Isaac Serafini - REACH Project: Penn State Hershey

At Penn State College of Medicine I was brought on to the REACH Project (Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health), as part of the CDC grant program of the same name.

Our project's team started with a focus on local communities in Lebanon and Berks counties for the Spanish speaking populations living there. Our goals we to provide materials in both English and Spanish to support growth in community health such as better nutrition, connecting to local health providers and clinics, and physical activity.

My role allowed me to support our team with designing a logo and brand for our project, creating a WordPress website and training other project staff, and designing graphics for the project and our community partner's initiatives.

For the project logo we wanted something that captured a vibrant community with a colorful pallet, and themes of community health and exercise.
With the 2 final options above, the team selected the "heart-fruit" as their logo.

Bannerstand for Public Events

Signage created for local business owners who asked for signage in English and Spanish at the beginning of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Healthy Recipe in English

Healthy Recipe in Spanish

Floor stickers created for local business owners who asked for signage in English and Spanish at the beginning of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Healthy Recipe in English

Healthy Recipe in Spanish

Bus Ad to introduce the REACH Project to the Communities

Heritage Month event flyer in English

Farm Stand flyer in English

Farm Stand flyer in Spanish

Community Survey flyer in English

Sign for Bike Park in the City of Lebanon, PA

As the main goal for the project was to serve our local Hispanic and Latino communities, every material we produced required an English and Spanish translation with the material. Often, we would have materials with a reverse print with either language, or a 1-face material that included translations for both. Through translation services and our bilingual team members we ensured every message was tailored from English to Spanish for accuracy and accessibility.

When the COVID-19 Pandemic began our team faced the challenges of keeping our communities informed with the latest news and best practices for health and safety during the pandemic.

We had many challenges with responding to the pandemic, including growing misinformation and the urgency to flatten the curve for hospital systems. But our team rallied efforts with other partners and developed multiple infographic and illustrative communication pieces to help inform our Spanish-speaking neighbors how to keep them, their families and communities safe. With this urgency, we quickly developed graphical materials to illustrate our messages and quickly present to our audience the safety information.

The work was quickly picked up by other peers across the country in need of this format of messaging to Spanish-speakers.

English: Booklet to educate community on the pandemic and safety information

Spanish: English: Booklet to educate community on the pandemic and safety information

COVID-19 Fact Sheet in English

COVID-19 Fact Sheet in Spanish

Alternative greeting options for health safety in English

Alternative greeting options for health safety in Spanish

Infographics for safety information during early COVID-19 Pandemic response

Early Pandemic response included governor's urging to limit cross state travel for the holiday season of 2021

Illustration of safe video calls when Pandemic restrictions affect holiday gatherings

As part of the project's transparency with our communities and the CDC, infographics of the project's metrics were designed to visually report the impacts the project has had with the community and our partnerships.