Inspire Award Caps Healthy Places Visit

They’re All Kings of the Hill

Members of the Colorado Health Foundation, PUMA and Healthy Places visited Lamar for three days in what was styled as a Fall Fling. The term is somewhat deceptive, for although the time spent in Lamar was enjoyable, it was also a critical work session which gained an assessment on the accomplishments of the Healthy Places Coalition since its inception over two years ago.

Kids at the City Tree Farm

Visitors were treated to a picnic lunch on Tuesday, October 27^th at Willow Creek Park and were greeted by members of the Lamar City Council and Healthy Places representatives.  Afternoon meetings focused on Community Evaluations and successes and lessons learned at the Healthy Places Storefront.  The afternoon ended with a walking visit to the HOPE Center on North 10^th Street, the HOPE Center Community Garden, the city’s Tree Farm and the site of a former derelict house adjacent to Lincoln School.

Emily Nieschburg, Healthy Places Executive Director, provided an outline of some of the accomplishments brought about through community buy-in, ranging from adults to numerous students from the Center and the One Step Up program which operates out of the school.   The goal of the visit was to view some of the positive changes and initial plans from the Healthy Places group to create areas throughout the City of Lamar where youngsters and adults of all ages could enjoy some outdoor activities which were not available to them earlier.  Another facet of the project was to involve residents from each section of the city that would benefit from positive changes and to bring youngsters into the mix and provide them with their own voice about their goals and dreams for outdoor fun, games and places to enjoy, either those that already existed and could be improved upon, or to develop plans that would become a later reality.

One Step Up Students Detailed Efforts to Have Derelict House Demolished

Nieschburg offered some background on how various improvements evolved over the past two years, from the Garden to new playground facilities at the Northside Park, to murals on several downtown buildings, created from the ideas of the students. They, in turn, described how they developed their own ideas for beautification projects in the city or sought direction on how to approach the Lamar City Council with a request to tear down an abandoned house next to their Center.  “We just wanted to step up and see if we could make a change in our community,” they explained. Others raised $400 from bake sales to finance Doggie-Doo stations at Willow Creek Park.  Nieschburg explained that the students were encouraged to voice their ideas or dreams of the changes they’d like to see in their town.  “One suggestion was to use  this open space to develop some greenhouses, have an expanded community garden for more vegetables and a place to where kids and adults could mingle and share common projects.  Some students suggested building a zip line and a tree house near the city’s Tree Farm.

One Step Up Students Describe their Doggie-Doo Park Project

Wednesday morning brought the announcement that Lamar was one of six Colorado communities that had been selected as a first level recipient for the GOCO Inspire grant of $100,000. The early morning announcement was made in Bicentennial Park on South Main Street in Lamar, as Nieschburg, members of the Colorado Health Foundation and GOCO described what the grant would mean to Lamar. Dozens of kids involved in the projects were on hand as the announcement was explained to the gathering by Chana Reed, local GOCO representative.

Hillary Fulton of Colorado Health Foundation and Emily Nieschburg

The Inspire Initiative is a five year strategy aimed at inspiring communities to make use of local outdoor activities and benefit from the exercise it can provide. The Initiative wants to curtail what appears to be a growing disconnect between youth and the outdoors and a growing level of obesity in the state’s youth, particularly in southeast Colorado where it’s the highest.  Lamar will have ten months to use the $100,000 grant to submit applications with specific requests for grant funding to put their projects into use.  These grants will range between $1 million and $5 million per pilot community and the presentations will be made in October 2016.

The three day visit concluded on Thursday morning as local residents had an opportunity to voice their concerns or ideas for creating a skateboard park in an area of Lamar; Bicentennial Park, the ballfield Sportsplex, Willow Creek Park or the horseshoe pits east of the Enchanted Forest. PUMA, Progressive Urban Management Associates representatives, conducted the 45 minute interview sessions to get an idea of the local pros and cons for a park in each of the locations.

By Russ Baldwin