by Jody Martin - Registered Dietitian, Columbia County Health System
Over the last seven years, the Washington Health Foundation has funded many wellness programs and activities in Columbia County. Reflecting back over the years on our community’s Healthiest State in the Nation wellness campaigns, I value one campaign more than any other. It is the wellness initiative that remains today despite no funding: the development and organization of our community wellness coalition.
Our coalition, called Columbia Cares, was organized in 2009 in an effort to prioritize wellness initiatives for grants in our community, including grants from the Washington Health Foundation. The idea was to bring together our community with common and uncommon partners to focus on what wellness issues matters most locally. We wanted a group of leaders who were willing to meet and to take action.
The coalition meets monthly and has engaged our local leaders to think critically about wellness, participatory evaluation of programs, and generate dialogue and resource prioritization for wellness activities in our community. The biggest challenge that we face is not new to rural coalitions of our size but is at the heart of implementation: it is funding.
Our small community has reaped many rewards from the Washington Health Foundation’s grants. The funding has been a crucial ignition to our coalition’s momentum and success. When the WHF grants were no longer available for 2011, it definitely made our coalition look at funding sources for wellness initiatives.
As a rural community, we understand the need to be creative and work together to get programs done, and this year more than ever we have done that. The array of programs our coalition is working on ranges from our county engineer and school district researching walking plans for safe routes to school, to Dayton High School seniors finishing a disc golf course in the City Park.
Although the funding is limited, we feel and see the growth of wellness in our community. The development of several farmers markets, creation of a thriving community garden, the plans for a new playground on the north side of town and the ground-breaking construction of organic food processing plants are a few advancements. We are excited about these environmental changes to promote health in our community, and appreciate the people who are dedicated to making the changes happen.
I'd be interested in hearing. The TOS seems rather clear that it is not unless expressly approved by Amazon. I guess if the library got it in writing then they would be ok.
Posted by: supra vaiders | October 24, 2011 at 03:18 AM