WELLESLEY, Mass. — Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Foundation has announced that it awarded nearly $2.3 million in grants to 700 nonprofit organizations in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts and New Hampshire in 2015.

In 2015, the foundation closed out its eight-year investment in preventing childhood obesity and initiated the Healthy Food Fund. More than $1.5 million was distributed to the foundation’s Healthy Food Fund initiatives in the region, with funds supporting programs that grow, distribute and/or market fresh food for families and communities.

In the spring of 2015, Harvard Pilgrim Foundation awarded its first round of Healthy Food Fund grants totaling $220,000 to local garden and community farming programs. The foundation also awarded $200,000 in grants to support mobile farmers’ markets in Worcester and Lowell, Mass., Hartford, Conn., and Lewiston/Auburn.

In addition to the $1.5 million in Healthy Food Fund grants, the foundation also awarded $616,000 to 700 organizations in 275 communities through Harvard Pilgrim’s Community Spirit 9/11 Mini-Grants program. This program allows each Harvard Pilgrim Health Care employee to annually award a $500 grant, funded by the foundation, to the charity of his or her choice. Areas of support have included schools, food pantries, youth development organizations and fundraising events.

2015 regional grant recipients included $109,000 to MaineHealth, Portland, Let’s Go! Healthcare, training healthcare practitioners in region to use childhood obesity prevention tools with patients.

Other Maine grant recipients included:

$40,000 to St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center, Lewiston/Auburn, and Cultivating Community, Good Food Bus Mobile Farmers’ Market.

$50,000 to Cultivating Community, Portland, expand CSA shares; cooking and nutrition classes.

$50,000 to Healthy Communities of the Capital Area, Southern Kennebec County, expand gleaning and food processing through Restorative Community Harvest Program.

$50,000 to Maine Farmland Trust, Biddeford, Portland, Saco, South Portland and Westbrook, SNAP incentives at farmers’ markets, CSA programs, food hubs, co-ops.

$50,000 to Wolfe’s Neck Farm Foundation, Greater Bath and Brunswick, Teen Agriculture Program, cooking and nutrition programming.

$40,000 to statewide community garden grants, expansion of nine community gardens.

$2,500 to Camp Sunshine, Casco, support for mission-driven needed resources

FMI: www.harvardpilgrim.org/foundation.