After collecting feedback from residents for an updated bicycle and pedestrian plan, the City of West Columbia will install bicycle racks in various locations throughout the city. The addition will complement the connectivity of parks, trails, and bike lanes and provide cyclists with a safe way to temporarily store their bicycles.
The City of West Columbia is one of 13 communities that recently received a healthy eating and active living (HEAL) mini-grant from Wholespire, a nonprofit that helps organizations and community coalitions increase access to healthy choices. The mini-grant allows West Columbia to purchase 12 bike racks and install them at locations such as parks, the River District, Triangle City, and other highly traversed areas of the city.
“Over the last several years we’ve worked to expand safe accessibility for bicycles and pedestrians throughout the city. We are thankful for these bicycle racks so that people can ride around town, stop, and enjoy the local parks, businesses, and restaurants, all while never having to get into a car,” said Mayor Tem Miles.
“As an individual who is a recreational cyclist, an occasional bicycle commuter, and a father who enjoys a family stroll through the neighborhood and parks, I see the addition of bike racks for public use in West Columbia as the logical next step to aid both current and prospective bikers to move around town,” says Joel Mathwig, West Columbia resident. “Having a convenient and safe location to temporarily store a bike – whether to enjoy a park, go shopping, get to work – can only encourage more bicycle use and more physical activity.”
The West Metro Bike and Pedestrian Master Plan identify a clear strategy for near- and long-term active transportation projects within the West Metro area. The goals identified by the plan are to:
Complete a connected and accessible network of bike and pedestrian facilities,
Improve safety for all modes of transportation,
Provide a comfortable network that encourages biking and walking for users of all ages and abilities, and
Provide equitable access to bike and pedestrian facilities and cultivate an environment of respect for all modes of transportation.
The City of West Columbia, the Central Midlands Council of Governments, the City of Cayce, and the City of Springdale created The West Metro Bike and Pedestrian Master Plan in 2017 and adopted the plan in 2018.
What do you do when your community doesn’t have a safe place to be active or needs new ways to get nutritious food? You apply for a Wholespire Healthy Eating and Active Living (HEAL) Mini-Grant. Thirteen communities will receive funding in the coming months for projects that support populations that need community resources like playground equipment, school gardens, and water refill stations.
“These types of resources tend to be barriers for people who want to lead healthy lives but may not be able to afford a gym membership or spend much on fresh fruits and vegetables,” said Meg Stanley, executive director at Wholespire. “We want to change that by assisting communities that truly need help with providing their residents safe places to be active and alternative and affordable ways to access nutritious food.”
Wholespire received 76 HEAL Mini-grant applications, a 111% increase from last year. Mini-grants are given once a year, and funding is limited to up to $5,000 per application. According to Stanley, “The response from communities speaks to the need for local governments and other local entities to take a closer look at the needs and wants of their communities. People want to live healthy lives, but a majority of them don’t have access to healthy choices.”
The HEAL Mini-grants also focus on making communities more equitable and reducing health disparities. Communities, neighborhoods, and schools differ because of location, income, race, and other socioeconomic factors. These factors, in addition to county health statistics, are used in scoring applications, making it a competitive process.
The 13 mini-grant recipients are listed below in no particular order:
City of West Columbia (Lexington County) –Install bicycle racks in highly-traveled areas to increase parking options for cyclists who bike to eat, shop, work, and visit.
Promised Land Walking Track Improvements (Greenwood County) – Build upon a county-funded walking track by installing picnic tables, swings, and trash cans.
Town of Ridge Spring Bike and Park Improvements (Saluda County) – Install bike racks at the farmer’s market to encourage biking and upgrade playground equipment at the local park that encourages musical play and interaction.
Fresh Food Initiative through Education (Beaufort County) – Rebuild existing raised garden beds at Whale Branch Elementary School, create a dedicated outdoor classroom space, and establish a food distribution point on the campus to feed families.
Swing set in rural Fairfield County (Fairfield County) – Install a swing set at Rufus Belton Park, an area with limited play equipment for children.
School Garden for Science and Nutrition Exploration (Clarendon County) – Build a garden at Manning Elementary School to foster science and nutrition education for students and distribute food to families.
Eat Better, Feel Better, Move Better (Georgetown County) – Teach children how and when to plant and care for fruits and veggies through a school garden in The Sunshine Place Daycare’s outdoor classroom.
School Community Active Pathways and Blacktop Games (Oconee County) – Paint an active pathway on Salem Elementary School’s paved walking path and Foursquare courts in the recess area.
F2UEL Up: Food and Fitness Used in Energizing Lives Up (Laurens County) – Create a fueling station for YMCA of Clinton guests that provides free produce, pantry items, and other staples gathered, gleaned, and purchased from local food partners.
Hampton Elementary School Playground Revitalization (Hampton County) – Revive the school playground by installing a multi-climbing unit that gives students an option for physical activity.
Upgrading Basketball Court of Knights Hill Park (Kershaw County) – Upgrade the basketball court, located in Camden, to give young people an opportunity to be physically active while having fun.
The Franklin School Hydration Station (Spartanburg County) – Install water bottle fill stations on the playground for children at the child development center.
Society Hill Community Gardens (Darlington) – Create raised bed community garden plots for low-income families to use and harvest their own fresh fruits and vegetables.
Marion County Library Director Holly Cockfield shows off Storyscape.
During the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, some of us found ourselves stuck inside and wondering how to spend our time. Many adults worked from home and students attended class from home, which made for agonizing times for many parents. Like many organizations across the country, Marion County Library System used its creativity to help families escape hard times into the great outdoors and read a story at the same time.
Marion County Library Director Holly Cockfield heard of the international StoryWalk® Project, an outdoor reading experience that features a story along a walking trail. She thought this would be a great addition to the Marion Hike and Bike Trail, so she and her team set out to make it happen. They decided to name it Storyscape, a play on the words “story” and “escape.”
The Storyscape project features 20 deconstructed pages of a children’s book that families can read along their walk or bike. Cockfield explains, “As families start their escape on the one-mile trail, they can stop at 20 kiosks to read the first half of a book, and on their way back, they can read the second half of the book. There are enough kiosks to feature a 40-page book.”
The library eventually had to remove the kiosks because weather and other natural elements made the kiosks unstable. “The signs were just hanging out in our basement for a while, which was disappointing. There was a lot of interest in Storyscape, and we didn’t have the funds to invest in a more permanent installation method.”
Through a community partner, Cockfield heard about Wholespire’s Healthy Eating and Active Living (HEAL) Mini-Grant. She applied for only $1,000 to fund supplies and the installation of a sturdier base for the kiosks.
“We felt like this would be a great investment in a rural community that would benefit all members of the community. It connects active living with literacy, which is a good motivator to use the hike and bike trail,” said Kelsey Sanders, MPH, CHES, community relations manager at Wholespire.
Cockfield said, “I really thought it would be a wonderful idea and it would be impossible to raise funds for. Wholespire changed that. We’re very thankful for your help.”
The Marion County Library System will change the stories periodically to give families a new experience. They’ve received positive feedback through a QR code posted on the last page of the Storyscape.
If you live in or visit Marion, check out the Storyscape located on the Marion Hike and Bike Trail in downtown Marion, South Carolina, and read a book. It’s not just for kids. Adults can enjoy it too!
Every county has a parks and recreation department that’s responsible for community activity programs and maintaining and ensuring the safety of its parks. But, sometimes, the playground equipment in parks unintentionally gets overlooked and becomes unsafe for children and families.
Hampton County has only one park under its name, and it’s located next door to the parks and recreation gymnasium and offices in the small town of Varnville. Recreation Park has been there for decades and it probably once hosted tons of kids and families over the years. As kids’ play choices changed, so has the foot traffic at Recreation Park. In addition, the decline in local economies has made parks and playgrounds less of a priority for rural areas of the state like Hampton County.
“Some of the equipment is probably more than 30 years old,” said Tania Peeples, Hampton County Parks and Recreation director. “The teeter-totter is wood, so it’s old. The bouncers and merry-go-round, I played on those as a child. The swing set has chains, but no seats.”
New bouncers were installed with the help of the Let’sGo! 3.0 mini-grant.
The department has changed leadership a few times, but each person had visions of bringing the park back to life and making their community healthier. They applied for a Let’sGo! 3.0 mini-grant to bring in some new playground equipment, and Wholespire was happy to give them a boost.
“Our small towns are treasures and truly deserve some help, especially those located in the I-95 corridor,” said Meg Stanley, Wholespire executive director. “Providing children and families a safe place to play is a basic community amenity that helps everyone grow healthy.”
Mini-grant funding was used to:
Replace the tire swing.
Replace missing seats and broken chains on the swing set.
Add new equipment like a double seat bouncer, truck bouncer, pearl twirl, and teeter-totter bouncer.
Peeples said, “The community loves it. The kids love it. We do have quite
A new teeter-totter in Recreation Park
a few people who come out and play. We still have a lot of work to do out there but the new playground equipment really brightened it up.”
The new playground equipment has spurred excitement for Peeples. “I would like to remove the plastic ring around the swing set, clean it out, and plant sod. I would love to add some picnic shelters with tables in an empty area. Of course, I’d like to see a paved walking trail around the park, replace some benches, and add an accessible swing.”
Did we mention Recreation Park has a nature trail? Under Peeples’ leadership, a nature trail, which had become overgrown with bamboo and weeds, was discovered. Completely inaccessible to the community and mostly forgotten about, Peeples and other parks and recreation leaders set out to uncover the lost gem. Located behind Recreation Park, the nature trail winds through woods and wetlands — complete with a wooden bridge. Restoring the trail will add even more value to the only county park and the lives of its residents and visitors.
“I’m a lover of the outdoors, so hearing that they rediscovered a nature trail is exciting and hopeful for Hampton County,” said Stanley. “I hope this small bit of funding from us will inspire them to reach for the stars and apply for other funding opportunities to help complete their vision.”
In February 2019, the University of South Carolina Lancaster (USCL) applied for a Let’s Go! 3.0 mini-grant to increase access to its outdoor recreation amenities by adopting an open community use policy and to continue its active community environments work with Wholespire Lancaster County, formerly Eat Smart Move More Lancaster County.
The partners had completed several community health improvement projects that increased access to healthy opportunities. The mini-grant would help complete their vision while focusing on the Clinton community, a Qualified Opportunity Zone (QOZ) in the City of Lancaster. QOZs are characterized as economically distressed communities defined by the census tract.
Existing projects that needed to be completed were:
Improvement of the built environment in the Clinton neighborhood by extending bike lanes and crosswalks and offering a loop to the Lindsay Pettus Greenway, which improved access to the USCL campus.
USCL public health students conducted an assessment on student on-campus walking behaviors. They used the data to develop walking routes for anyone to utilize while on campus.
USCL’s recreation facilities were open to the public (including trails, walking routes, tennis courts, picnic pavilion, 5K starting point, bike lanes, and crosswalks). However, the promotion of these facilities has been limited to word-of-mouth.
The Gregory YMCA began managing the operations of the University-owned recreation facility. USCL secured funding for the YMCA to provide sliding scale financial assistance to income-eligible YMCA members on a long-term, sustained basis. Approximately 400 Lancaster residents utilize this benefit from the YMCA, many of whom live in the nearby Clinton community.
Let’s Go 3.0 mini-grant funds were used to:
Hire a professional designer to create a campus map of outdoor recreational facilities open to the public, which included the student-design walking routes.
Purchase and install way-finding signs that promote the open use amenities and walking routes.
Promote the open community use agreement policy to the community. Promotional strategies included issuing a press release to The Lancaster News, posting the press release on USCL’s website and social media, and announcing the existence and availability of these community resources at USCL’s student orientation and Clinton Elementary School’s Parent Night.
Purchase bike racks for the Lindsay Pettus Greenway trailhead in the Clinton community and the USCL campus.
Initial Challenges
For USCL, the challenge wasn’t creating new opportunities for physical activities, it was promoting the ones they already had. The USCL campus has seven buildings, a YMCA in the physical education building, tennis courts, and about a mile and a half of natural path trails.
“We’re very community-oriented, and there’s a lot of word-of-mouth advertising. This is how a lot of small towns, small communities go. We just assume that people know things, but we’re only reaching our own social circles,” explained Lauren Vincent Thomas, professor of health promotion education and behavior at USCL.
The first step was passing an open community use agreement. “When we learned about the Let’s Go 3.0 mini-grant to promote and pass an open community use agreement, I felt like we kind of already had it, we just hadn’t set it as a policy,” said Thomas. “In reality, people use the trail and the tennis court IF they know that they can, but it wasn’t widely known information.”
During the initial conversation with university leadership, they said people already knew about the trails. Convincing them that the project had value was most of the battle with the project. According to Thomas, “Wholespire had this great manual that answered all of my questions. I felt very equipped and confident when the Education Foundation asked about liability.”
A Snowball Affect
Before this project moved to the next steps, debris that was dumped in front of trails was cleared. “It just sent a message that we didn’t care about the campus,” Thomas said while explaining how things like debris deterred people from using the trails. “After that, it was just about updating some features and showing what the campus had to offer. The website was updated, billboards with maps were placed in prime positions, and trail markers and entrances were added.”
Once the project was started, more opportunities were uncovered. “We found money to put split rail fencing up to show off the trail and leveraged funding from another grant to put bike racks in, and we worked with the South Carolina Wildlife Federation to certify that we had a wildlife habitat,” said Thomas. “It reminded us of what we had and gave us the opportunity to share with other people.”
Thomas’ favorite part of the project has been connecting with people who are readily willing to offer their own gifts, talents, and resources.
“We just needed to give them the opportunity and generously thank them for what they offer. For example, we partnered with, an organization in our community that builds ADA ramps for seniors and people who have disabilities, to build a new bridge on one of the trails. They were willing to do this project for us for free as long as they got the credit. There is so much creative generosity in our community. Now, our partners feel like the trails are just as much theirs as it is USC Lancaster’s and that’s exactly what we want.”
New Conversations
The students on campus have been enjoying the positive changes the project brought. The picnic shelter has seen new light now that people know it’s there and university organizations have been enjoying the cleared trails. An outdoor club put in geocaches and monitors them to add new prizes and F3, a male CrossFit group, uses the trails for Saturday morning runs.
The project has also affected conversations about the university’s 10-year Master Plan. “This mini-grant project has primed us to have that bigger conversation about walkability in our community,” said Thomas. “There is a four-lane highway between USC Lancaster’s campus and downtown Lancaster that could benefit from a crosswalk or pedestrian bridge!”
Thomas is hoping this project is the start of making the community more bike- and pedestrian-friendly.
In Spring 2021, GoForth Recovery in Spartanburg found out about the Let’sGo! South Carolina 3.0 mini-grant opportunity offered by Wholespire, formerly Eat Smart Move More South Carolina. They needed an outdoor fitness area to provide residents, family members, and those in the Spartanburg community with a dedicated multi-use area to enhance the recovery journey and stimulate active living.
Changing unhealthy habits isn’t easy for anyone, especially those who suffer from addiction. And oftentimes, individuals who enter a recovery program like GoForth Recovery cannot afford a gym membership or even leave the premises for physical activity. Having a resource like an onsite basketball court allows residents a way to handle their stress and anxiety, while also providing a place for social interaction with their family, friends, and even the community. So, they applied for a mini-grant and received it!
Balancing Life and Making it Healthy
A basketball court may seem like a small thing, but for the residents at GoForth Recovery, it’s huge. It means a way to be physically active, a place to relieve stress and anxiety, and an activity to do during visits with family and friends.
For the average person, balancing everything life throws at you can be overwhelming, and we often turn to stress eating or some other form of unhealthy coping. For people struggling with addictions, everyday life is even more difficult to handle because they have to relearn how to balance life. GoForth Recovery teaches its residents how to lead a well-balanced and healthy life because when a person in recovery doesn’t adopt healthy habits, they are more likely to relapse. To help prevent relapse, GoForth Recovery provides classes on everything from money management and how to shop with a list to healthy eating and active living.
“Most guys who come in…no one has ever shown them how to have a good, balanced, healthy life. What does healthy look like,” explained Brian Naylor, executive director at GoForth Recovery. “We talk about seven hours of sleep, eating six times a day, what does healthy mean. If I’m getting enough sleep, eating right, and exercising, then I’m more likely to stay in recovery. Nutrition and physical activity is key.”
Naylor explained that their house is a healthy house. He’s witnessed guys turn their lives around and go full force into taking care of their bodies. “It’s amazing to see the success of these guys. When I say guys are drinking shakes at night, I’m watching them use kale, strawberries, bananas, and protein powder; and six months ago, they were shooting meth. That’s healthy. That’s recovery.”
The Power of Community
Before the project began.
Initially, the plan called for clearing enough land for the basketball court, but the vision soon grew to clear an entire lot to make room for future additions, like a pavilion and a playground for residents’ children and visitors.
With any healthy eating and active living project, leveraging funds play an important role in the magnitude and success of the end product. GoForth Recovery had an ambitious job to complete with only $3,500 from Wholespire, which, according to Naylor, only covered about half of the actual costs of the basketball court.
“We were able to get it done for next to nothing, except for gas. We had people donate equipment. We had guys who could operate it. We’re hauling off stuff to the dump. We had the City that donated their time, and they came and filled five or six truckloads of trees and debris.”
Word got out to various community members, businesses, partners, and associates about the basketball court project and the need for help with one slightly large unbudgeted item — dirt, 20 tons of dirt.
“After we graded the land, it required dirt because the land is low. The court system in Spartanburg was demolishing their old courthouse to build a garage. Word got out that we needed dirt. We also had a resident who was working for a local home builder. So for one week, there were close to 30 truckloads…and I’m talking about thousands and thousands of dollars of donations that were coming in. So just the dump trucks and the liability and the dirt, we were able to raise the land .”
Because of GoForth Recovery’s connections and the connections of their residents, they were able to leverage more than $10,000 in in-kind donations and complete their project. As Coretta Scott King once said, “ The greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of its members.”
Sharing is Caring
Since the completion of the basketball court, Naylor has witnessed increased activity among its residents. Duke Energy installed a light, so the guys take advantage of nighttime hoops.
“We have other people from the recovery community show up to play basketball because there isn’t any other place to go, plus it’s a safe place,” said Naylor. “We have meetings on-site that are open to the public, so after a meeting, people will go outside to congregate and shoot baskets.”
GoForth Recover also shares their new court with a local boys’ home, located one street behind the residence. “They’re over there playing every day on our court. It’s been a good bridge between us and them because we’ve been able to invite them to things like devotion, breakfasts, and some of our group outings — all because of this basketball court.”
In the end, GoForth Recovery got their community basketball court and already prepared space for future additions. But, it didn’t happen without challenges. From tree stump removal, scheduling with partners, debris removal, grading, and weather, their residents rallied behind them and used their connections, skills, and experiences to see the project through to the end.
“The challenges we encountered resulted in an incredible groundswell of resident unity, partner engagement, community involvement, and generous companies that helped us build a community basketball court, which far exceeded our vision in quality when we applied for our initial grant funding from Wholespire,” said Naylor.
GoForth Recovery, a non-profit organization established in 2018, is a men’s addiction recovery program and residential transitional living home for alcoholics and drug addicts. Their six-month residential program provides housing and a structured environment that allows alcoholics and addicts to recover from a hopeless and helpless state of mind and body. Their primary goal is to enable the resident to take responsibility for their recovery and build the foundation for them to be a productive member of their community.
Before
Clearing the land
The City of Spartanburg and a local home builder donated 20 tons of dirt.
Eat Smart Move More South Carolina invested at least $43,219.48 into mini grant projects that addressed healthy eating over the course of a three-year project supported with funds from BlueCross® BlueShield® of South Carolina Foundation. Fourteen projects were completed in eleven different communities.
One of the many successful projects includes the South Carolina School for the Deaf and the Blind….
Unforeseen Advantages The South Carolina School for the Deaf and the Blind is the only school in South Carolina that serves deaf, blind and multi-sensory disabled students. The school serves almost 1600 students statewide, with 175 students living on campus Monday through Friday. “As a residential school, our students spend a lot of time with our staff and, like all children, they emulate the behaviors they see. If we want them to eat healthier and exercise, we need to include our staff,” said the Director of Development, Weslie Higdon. With this in mind, the Pathways to Healthy Living project was started at the school with a grant from the JM Smith Foundation in 2018. The overarching goal of the project was to encourage staff and students to live healthier.
This project started with a healthy snack initiative in the first year and then moved onto the Fountains of Health, which consisted of buying water bottles for everyone and adding water bottle filling stations in various locations on campus. “We had no idea that the pandemic was coming so it was just like serendipity that this great project was able to work in a way that we didn’t originally think of to keep our students and our staff safe,” Alice Lang, the Grants Coordinator, reflected on the project. 30 water bottle filling stations were added to the campus, four of which were installed with the Let’s Go 3.0 Mini Grant.
Reactions to the Fountains of Health A lot of the problems they encountered were technical things in the older buildings. The campus was first built in 1849 and one of the water fountains that was replaced with a filling stations was installed in 1969. Some of the ideas they had in mind for the filling stations weren’t feasible due to the way the buildings were originally built. Weslie and Alice praised their contractor, Cooler Dude, for solving the problems that they never envisioned being a problem.
Another filling station was installed in Walker Hall, where 700 water bottles were filled between August and December. Needless to say, the project has been a huge hit among students and staff, especially since the water fountains weren’t able to be used due to COVID-19. Weslie’s favorite part “was when everyone came back to campus and saw them. I had a teacher tell me ‘We were worried that we were going to have to work with them on it, but they were so excited, they just walked right up to it and started filling up their bottles, they were so glad that they finally had one in that school.’”
The other two filling stations are outside by the track, an area Weslie and Alice thought would have to be put on hold. The campus isn’t currently open to the public, but once they open back up, the campus welcomes community members and hosts sporting events like soccer, football, and goalball, a game designed for people with blindness! Weslie is sure the outside filling stations will be popular among the community members. “The welcome center gets calls every day about if the track is open yet so I know that when we do allow people back on campus, it will get used a lot. It’s so nice not to have to cart your water or watch how much you drink or forget it in the car and have to go back and get it.”
Next Steps This is the final year of funding for the Pathways to Healthy Living project, but the project will still move forward to encourage students and staff to live healthier. Projects for the spring will depend on how COVID-19 pans out, but Alice is sure the project will last past the funding. “Next steps will really be about sustainability. Many of our students are considered low income, and many of the families we work with are struggling to put food on the table right now. They don’t have time to sit down and teach them about nutrition and exercise and the importance of drinking water so that’s a vital role that we play here in instructing our students and giving them an example, so I’m sure that administration will continue with this, maybe with different projects, but it needs to be sustained”
Healthy eating and active living opportunities are essential to the quality of life for every single individual regardless of their socioeconomic status. This is true for those who experience substance use disorders too. In fact, healthy eating and active living are life skills that people in recovery need to lead a quality, sober life. That’s one reason why Eat Smart Move More South Carolina (ESMMSC) decided to fund Keystone Substance Abuse Services’ Let’sGo! 3.0 mini-grant proposal.
“The Keystone project is an example of ESMMSC trying to address equity and access,” said Kelsey Sanders, MPH, CHES, community initiatives manager at ESMMSC. “When I think of equity, I think of giving people what they need to be successful. Patients at Keystone needed a safe and clean walking path to achieve success in managing not only their recovery, but also their physical and mental health.”
Making the Case for Keystone When ESMMSC reviewers scored the Keystone mini-grant application high, staff took a serious look at the application and weighed the benefits of choosing to fund an organization that doesn’t reach a large number of people compared to a proposal that does. Historically, ESMMSC funds organizations that can have a large impact on community health, but the Keystone application gave staff a new perspective.
Keystone is York County’s largest provider of treatment and prevention services. It’s also one of four public
AFTER: A clean, safe place to exercise
withdrawal management programs in the state, so they often serve patients from across the state of South Carolina, not just York County residents. Also, many of their patients are either uninsured or underinsured, meaning patients largely represent a low socioeconomic class – a group at high risk for physical and mental health problems.
“If patients can learn physical activity habits during their stay, these individuals can have a sustainable option for reducing depression and anxiety, increasing self-efficacy, decreasing stress, increasing coping skills, and ultimately providing individuals with a positive, sober alternative activity,” said Danielle Russell, executive director of Keystone Substance Abuse Services. “Not only will physical activity help in their recovery, but it can teach individuals lifelong skills that will reduce the risk of chronic diseases and improve optimal health and wellness.”
Despite this clear link between physical and mental health, organizations that address mental health and physical health largely remain siloed from each other. This project, while a nontraditional partnership for ESMMSC, represented an opportunity to bridge the connection between mental and physical health. ESMMSC staff saw the Keystone project as a direct link to social determinants of health, and diversity, equity, and inclusion – ESMMSC’s core values. By funding the Keystone project, ESMMSC staff realized the lasting impact they could have on people with substance use disorders and those close to them.
From Mud Pit to Clean Path
Keystone had a partially paved walking trail loop (.25 mile) on their campus, but it was rundown and oftentimes turned into a mud pit when it rained. Even under the unsafe conditions, counselors would try to get patients outside as often as possible for some extra stimulation and therapy. Keystone staff wanted more for their patients and themselves. They wanted to complete the loop so that their patients could thrive, and their staff could also focus on their personal health.
A Keystone inpatient counselor said, “One of the biggest complaints I get from some of the patients is that they are feeling lethargic once they start to feel better. Keeping them indoors with minimal exercise seems to exaggerate those symptoms. Many have specifically said that just getting their body moving and being outdoors helps them feel better overall (physically and mentally). We try when it’s nice out just to get them to take a walk, and often those are some of the best groups we have. It seems to support the theory that physical activity and sunshine provide essential therapeutic components.”
According to their application, physical activity is a part of an individual’s life that is often lost during their addiction. Physical activity can help individuals find their path to recovery. Evidence shows that physical activity can help provide structure to their days, generate positivity, distract them from cravings, and heal their body and brain.
A New Path to Coping
Keystone completed their walking trail loop, and now, patients and staff have a safe place to exercise, to meet, and to cope. All of the staff interviewed indicated they take their patients outside to walk the loop, and they’re seeing positive changes.
An Inpatient Clinical Counselor said, “I take patients out there as often as possible. Walking, having group time and individual time with patients helps decrease stress and anxiety and patients open up more.”
An Inpatient Technician and a Substance Abuse Specialist said, “I will take patients out on the trail in the afternoons and after dinner, if the weather is good. They are so glad to get outside. There are times when they compete and walk very fast, skip or hop to exercise, and have fun.”
Employees Benefit Too
ESMMSC knows the importance of employee health and wellness – that includes mental health too. Worksite wellness programs and policies lead to improved health of employees, decreased health care costs, and improved productivity. So, when the Keystone application mentioned worksite wellness, it was one more very good reason to fund their proposed project.
Before the project was completed, employees noted having to jump mud puddles and other obstacles on the loop or just choosing to walk the parking lot near a busy street. Now, they find the loop to be pleasing and beneficial.
“I use the path for afternoon walks and utilize the entire track. If our power goes out, or I find time I use it at other times as well,” said the Outpatient Programs Administrator. “Walking was the recommendation of my heart doctor. It helps clear my mind. I step away from the computer and it helps me stay focused on the moment.”
“I go for a walk every afternoon around 2:00. It gets me ready for the final two hours of the workday to get energized for the afternoon. One to two laps revitalize me. I wish I had time to walk more,” said an Outpatient Clinical Counselor.
The .25-mile walking trail loop can be used by people of all ability levels, and it gives patients and staff an opportunity to walk, jog, or just enjoy fresh air. What’s next for the Keystone walking trail loop? Build fitness stations along the trail to increase strength and conditioning, and possibly lighting for late evening walks.
