With Year 1 under its belt, a local initiative aimed at reducing local obesity and tobacco use is pushing to get more business participants for its second year.
Healthy Living Alliance was created by a consortium of community groups that wanted to address a paradox: Obesity and smoking rates in the area are high, and there are several resources available to help people get healthier, but there is a disconnect between those who need assistance and those who are prepared to provide it.
A couple of years ago, representatives from Jordan Valley Health Clinic, the Springfield-Greene County Health Department and the YMCA teamed up to figure out how to bridge that gap.
They discussed the Social Innovation for Missouri Fund, used to reduce obesity and tobacco use, which statewide stand at 30.5 percent and 21.1 percent, respectively, according to 2010 statistics from the Centers for Disease Control Prevention in Atlanta. The federally funded grant is used in different ways in seven parts of Missouri, and as officials tried to figure out how best to use that money here, Healthy Living Alliance was born.
“In Springfield, we have a lot of great organizations and community involvement. That already exists, but what happens a lot of times, those organizations are so busy they’re not communicating with each other,” said Allison Wilson, HLA program coordinator.
Free help HLA serves as a bridge between the community and organizations that have resources to offer. According to HLASpringfield.org, the initiative’s four focus areas are active living, healthy eating, built environment – i.e., advocating for wider sidewalks, more bike paths – and clean air. Funding is garnered via matching grants, Wilson said, so the state has to match the federal funds, and when grants are awarded in a community, they, too, must make a match.
HLA is now in its second year, with $106,025 in grant funds, which will result in a budget of $212,050 for the year once matching funds have been raised. Wilson said $48,894 has been raised to date, with support coming from founding organizations and an anonymous donation from a foundation. She noted that a committee of more than 20 partner representatives assists with identifying opportunities for additional matching funds from the community.
“You get more community buy-in when you have partners that are matching those grants,” she said.
In its first year, HLA worked with two employers – Victory Trade School and Buffalo Prairie Trade School – and a handful of local public schools. In Year 2, HLA will continue working with those sites, and organizers hope to double the number of sites participating, Wilson said.
Qualifying businesses and schools need to meet certain income requirements, Wilson said, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s hard to join the program.
“I wouldn’t want that to deter a business from calling us, because maybe your employees are low-income rather than your physical area,” she said.
Once a qualifying business or school is identified, HLA gets to work figuring out what is needed most by conducting a healthy living assessment developed by Harvard and Stanford universities.
The assessment “looks at opportunities for activity, exercise, healthy eating, tobacco prevention and also it looks at built environment and policies,” Wilson said. “Does a neighborhood have a bike lane? Does a business have a bike rack if employees want to bike to work?”
Once the assessment is complete, HLA again meets with the organization to define goals and opportunities.
“Really, our big thing is, we don’t want to bring anything to the school or business that they don’t need or aren’t interested in,” Wilson said.
Once needs are determined, HLA reaches out to different community partners to match the needs with available resources – with no charge to the participating sites.
Becca Brotherton, chairwoman of women’s studies at Victory Trade School, said some staffers and students had asked about smoking cessation classes, but it wasn’t something the school could deliver until HLA got involved.
Other health issues for VTS included inactivity and healthy eating choices. So HLA connected VTS officials with the American Lung Association to set up a smoking-cessation class – complete with free nicotine-replacement therapy for participants – and sponsored seven students and staff to run in the Valentine Rock and Run 5k on Feb. 11.
The next phase, Wilson said, was to finish a small exercise room in the women’s house. At Robberson Elementary School, HLA worked to simultaneously address obesity and smoking issues by educating multiple generations.
“When we did our healthy living assessment, we found a lot of the kids really wanted their parents to quit smoking, and a lot of the parents were interested in it. We saw that as a neat way to affect the whole family,” Wilson said.
HLA enlisted the help of the Missouri State University dietetics department to teach children about healthy eating and the importance of staying active. In a nearby room, parents take smoking cessation classes, and all participants are served a meal by Caring Communities.
“We want to remove any barriers to people coming. It makes it easier for people to have a meal beforehand – small incentives can make a big difference,” Wilson said.
Nikohl McKee is Robberson’s PTA president and the HLA’s volunteer site coordinator at the school. She and her husband, Wes, are working on smoking cessation, while their daughters, ages 9 and 6, are participating in the healthy eating program.
The result has been a lot of cross-education in the McKee household.
“Our daughters have learned more about portion control, fruits and vegetables and meats. They’re like, ‘Mom, you’re giving me too much of this,’” McKee said with a laugh. “They’re teaching me, and they’re not seeing their parents smoke at all, which is what they’ve always wanted.”
Wilson said it may be a while before the actual impact of HLA’s endeavors are seen in the community.
“We’re not necessarily going to see changes in behavior for several years, because that’s just unrealistic to think you’re going to see a big change in one year,” she said. “Our primary goal is to say, does it help to have this go-between that’s helping make those connections? Does this help meet the needs quicker or more comprehensively?”
Still, Brotherton said she’s certain HLA is changing lives already for participants, in that one of VTS’ 5k participants is already thinking about the next event.
“One of the girls was like, ‘Maybe I’ll walk this one, but maybe I’ll run the next one,’” Brotherton said.[[In-content Ad]]
Angel Animal Hospital relocated; Great Dave’s Coffee Co. expanded with a brick-and-mortar shop in downtown Monett; and the Missouri Job Center began moved.