By Lisa Carolin
Pending the approval of 5 Healthy Towns Board of Directors, the Chelsea Wellness Coalition will receive $75,000 for year number five. Ten interventions will be the recipients of that funding, including SRSLY, Camp Gabika, Adaptive Movement and the Farmers Markets.
At the Coalition’s monthly meeting April 14, Lori Kintz, a wellness consultant, presented the draft Year 5 plan.
“I’m recommending that Year 5 we step forward and do something proactive against smoking,” Kintz said. “The Great American Smoke-out has been a successful annual intervention since 1977. I thought it would be fun to do a social media campaign.”
The Smoke-out takes place in November, and the coalition will talk about the best way to get the word out at its May meeting.
“It’s a very addicting habit, and it’s a difficult thing to stop,” said Coalition member Gary Maynard, a physician and a former smoker. “You have to change people’s thinking about it.”
Kintz’s plan also showed some of the Chelsea Coalition’s accomplishments, which include: Connectedness and collaboration between and among interventions making each stronger, attracting a wide representation of community members to wellness discussions, and steadily increasing participation numbers from interventions.
