• Were Place-based.
• Employed multi-sectoral approaches.
• Used policy to change food and physical activity environments to prevent obesity.
• Had formal evaluations attached to the initiative.

These 26 communities represented the cutting edge of environmental approaches to preventing obesity.  This first phase of California Convergence focused on identifying what, if anything, community leaders could do together that might support their goals locally or that could advance the movement statewide.  This first year of Convergence has centered on four areas identified by site leaders as priorities for action: Develop a common frame and sense of identiy; advance policy; build an active peer learning network; and grow the movement.
 
To date, the California Convergence has provided a mechanism to link community leaders together, to connect these leaders with existing tools and resources to help advance their work locally, and has created a vehicle by which communities can identify common priorities that can be advanced together with regional and state leaders.  In just the past 15 months, the California Convergence communities have, together, achieved a number of key accomplishments in all of these areas.  Highlights include:
 
-  Community leaders identified and commited to taking action in four key policy areas as priorities for Convergence: land use and transportation planning, healthy food retail, public safety, and improving nutrition standards in schools, and over 11 policy strategies within these, for action at the local and state level.
-  Currently, communities are working to leverage the new WIC rollout for wider healthy food access, and to increase the numbers of schools that are opening their doors to share their facilities with the local community. 
-  Convergence communities' input helped successfully amend implementation plans for State Assembly Bill 32, so that health impacts and co-benefits guide decisions as we address climate change, and public health has a formal, ongoing role in the process.
-  California Convergence sites now have real-time access to each other. Through in-person meetings, the virtual peer learning network -- Ning, the eNewsletter, and the California Convergence website, community advocates have begun to develop relationships with peers from other initiatives, and have shared strategies, tools, stories and offered support for this work.
-  Groups feel part of a growing movement to improve food and physical activity environments, as the number of Convergence sites rising from 26 to over 40 clearly shows. 
 
While the movement to change environments to prevent obesity is just beginning to gain momentum, and the power and synergy created by connecting these leaders is only just beginning to be realized, the accomplishments the California Convergence communities have gained over the past year are indeed significant.  In Phase I of the California Convergence project the foundation has been built.  Read on to learn more about where the movement is headed next.