Tag: Health & Wellness

Local food activists strategize, plan for a commercial kitchen

A growing interest among villagers around local food has sparked several upcoming events, including a garden tour and a series of potlucks. And the interest has led to an ambitious effort to make the village a regional food hub, with an initial step of creating a commercial kitchen as the first component of a community economic incubator.

“There’s a vibrant local food conversation taking place in Yellow Springs,” said Susan Jennings, executive director of Community Solutions, an organization that is helping to facilitate that conversation. “There’s a lot of community interest.”

Yellow Springs as food hub

The growing interest and energy around local food can be linked to the issue’s intersection with a variety of villagers’ concerns, including environmental sustainability, small town resiliency, economic development, nutrition and physical health, along with the pleasure of eating fresh food.

“We have a good group of people and it’s getting larger all the time,” according to Macy Reynolds of the local food committee of the Resiliency Network.

That energy and enthusiasm has led activists to begin pursuing an ambitious vision of making Yellow Springs a food hub in the region. The first step toward doing so is creating a commercial kitchen to help those who aim to pursue a local-food based livelihood.

“We’re trying to meet the needs of people who are trying to make money from growing local foods,” Reynolds said.

Such a commercial kitchen would serve as a resource for farmers, entrepreneurs, caterers, villagers and Antioch faculty, staff and students, according to a document recently released by Community Solutions. It would provide services such as preparation space for bakers and food processors, storage space for food trucks, teaching space for classes on food preparation and preservation and entrepreneurial opportunities for food businesses.

And the kitchen would be the first component in a larger vision of a community economic incubator, according to the document. Such an incubator would provide shared services and support for start-up businesses.

Community Solutions sees itself not as the sole mover-and-shaker on the project, but rather a participant that enables the process, according to  Jennings last week.

“I see Community Solutions as not leading the charge, but being willing to broker the conversation and make things happen,” Jennings said, stating that the conversation around a food kitchen had predated her coming on the job two years ago.

The nonprofit has identified the central back wing of the Sontag Fels building on the Antioch College campus as a potential site for the kitchen. The site, which is adjacent to the Community Solutions offices, is a likely location because it has ample space, including space to build out to create a full community economic incubator, access to an underused parking lot and a central location for both the college and the community, according to the Community Solutions document.

Community Solutions is currently in talks with Antioch College, which owns the building, regarding the project, according to Jennings. While the hope is that the college will choose to partner with Community Solutions on the commercial kitchen and community incubator, organizers plan to go ahead and find a different location if the college chooses to not be involved.

The purpose of a community economic incubator is clearly in line with Community Solutions founder Arthur Morgan’s philosophy of the value of small communities, and the need to strengthen their economic infrastructure by creating many small businesses.

“He saw people as leaving small towns because of the lack of interesting jobs and interesting conversations,” Jennings said. “He believed that democracy thrived in the small community, but that democracy is meaningless if you don’t have economic structures.”

Organizers for the project aim to spend the next year surveying the area and community regarding the needs of those involved in local food production, according to local food committee member Julia Navaro, a 2016 graduate of Antioch College and current employee of the Antioch Farm. Other priorities include creating a business plan and cost analysis. According to Jennings, a very rough estimate is that $1 million will be needed for the project, with half coming from grants and the rest from donations. The group estimates a three-year period for planning, development and build-out, with an estimated opening of the food hub in the summer of 2019.

The time is right to move forward, organizers believe.

“I’m really excited,” said Navaro. “This has been a conversation at Antioch for a while now.”

Upcoming events

Those interested in local food issues can take part in two upcoming events, sponsored by the local food committee of the Resiliency Network.

This Sunday at 10:30 a.m., villagers are invited to join a garden tour of local vegetable and pollinator gardens. The event will start at the Antioch Farm (meet in the parking lot behind the Wellness Center), after which participants will visit the High Street garden of Al Schlueter. Then at about noon the group will tour the Orton Road pollinator garden of Macy Reynolds.

The garden tour is a followup to a similar event held last fall in Schlueter’s large backyard garden, when the focus was on the greenhouse in which he grows greens over the winter. The interest in the tour was robust, according to Schlueter, with about 50 people attending. This Sunday he’ll introduce people to his garden at the peak of the growing season, when he’s ready to harvest “everything you can think of.” At Sunday’s event, he hopes to address people’s questions about all aspects of gardening, including planting, mulching and protecting against animals, as well as learn new tips himself.

“I always get ideas from others,” he said in a recent interview.

Reynolds has been working for about 10 years on her pollinator garden, which contains the various layers of vegetation that insects require for both pollination and shelter, she said recently. She’s also found that creating a garden that draws an abundance of “good” insects keeps down the number of “bad” insects that destroy plants.

“It works,” she said of her garden.

In a second upcoming event, the local food committee will host its monthly Local Foods Potluck, which takes place the last Sunday of every month at 2 p.m. in the First Methodist Church. This month’s event takes place on Sunday, Aug. 28, with a talk by Schlueter on preserving vegetables using the methods of canning, freezing and dehydrating.

The monthly potlucks grew from a series of local food events last November sponsored by the Resiliency Network. A core group that attended the events  has been meeting ever since, according to Reynolds, one of the organizers. Other members include Bob Huston, Beth Bridgeman, Schlueter, Navaro, Tim Honcho, Mike Breza, Sylvia Carter Denny, Nancy Lineburgh, Peggy Nestor, Carmen Milano, and Bonnie and Mickey Wilkinson.

The monthly potluck grew from the group’s awareness that some villagers were reluctant to support local community-supported agriculture, or CSAs, because they didn’t know how to cook unfamiliar vegetables. Consequently, each event includes a cooking demonstration by Milano, funded by a grant from the Yellow Springs Community Foundation.

All villagers are invited to attend the potlucks, and while participants are encouraged to contribute a local food dish, they’re also welcome to join in without contributing, according to Reynolds.

Addressing LGBTQ health

A longtime area HIV/AIDS resource is expanding its mission to serve the full spectrum of health needs in the LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer) community. Equitas Health, formerly AIDS Resource Center Ohio, announced its name change and broadened focus in early April. Since then, the not-for-profit organization has been holding “community conversations” across the state to raise awareness around its new mission and services. On Wednesday, May 18, Equitas Health representatives are coming to the Little Art Theatre. The event, which starts at 6 p.m., will also address the health needs and challenges in the LGBTQ community.

“We’re an emerging population,” said President and CEO Bill Hardy, who will be speaking at the event. “Folks are stepping forward, self-identifying as LGBTQ.” With the legalization of same-sex marriage, the community now includes many more families. But the health care system is not keeping pace, he added.

“Only a minority of medical schools address LGBTQ issues,” he said. And those that do may simply offer a “two-hour lecture on HIV/AIDS” — far from adequate coverage of the health needs of the diverse LGBTQ population.

According to a recent Kaiser Family Foundation report, the LGBTQ community, while sharing many of the health concerns of the general population, experiences worse physical health due to unique challenges and barriers. These include discrimination and stigma, cost and workplace barriers, incompetent care and, in some cases, outright denial of care. The report also suggests that HIV/AIDS, mental health, substance abuse and relationship violence are issues of concern.

Hardy explained that Equitas Health’s new mission aims to fill those needs and gaps. The organization, founded in 1984, now has 13 offices in 10 locations around Ohio, including medical centers in Dayton and Columbus. The Dayton medical center, which also includes a full-service pharmacy, has been providing broad-based health care services to its HIV positive clients — beyond the crucial services of viral suppression and related case management — for two-and-a-half years.

Its “comprehensive, patient-centered approach” is working, said Hardy. “We’re achieving tremendous medical outcomes.” Viral suppression rates are at 80 percent among the organization’s patient population (compared to 30 percent nationwide), and research shows that people with HIV who are virally suppressed live close to normal lifespans, he said.

And so, with its name change, Equitas Health is now opening its doors to people who aren’t HIV positive. Its focus is on those who identify as LGBTQ (subsets of this community remain at risk for HIV infection), though anyone seeking a medical home could choose to be a patient.

AIDS still has a stigma, said Hardy, so the name change was necessary. “Taking AIDS off the front door allows us to cast a wider net,” he said.

Equitas Health will continue to offer HIV prevention, treatment and other services to HIV positive people within the broader context of comprehensive health care, an approach that has been shown to yield the best outcomes. But for those who are not HIV positive, the organization can provide all the medical, mental health, behavioral, pharmacy and other services people might need. And it does so, said Hardy, in a safe and accepting environment that’s free of stigma.

The need for such an environment — LGBTQ advocates refer to it as “culturally competent” care — is clear, said Amber Best, Equitas Health’s director of development, another speaker at next Wednesday’s event. In conjunction with Equitas Health’s rebranding, the organization launched HealthOutLoud, a series of unscripted videos from actual clients who reflect on their experiences, often shaming, with previous health care providers.

In one video, a young man named Zach relates how, upon telling his health care provider he was gay, he was automatically assigned HIV positive status. It was “the worst experience of my life in a health care setting,” he says on the video. In another video, a young woman, Amanda, describes her reluctance to follow up on abnormal test results after her health care provider called her lifestyle “inappropriate.” Her hesitation stretched to eight years, at which point she was diagnosed with a major tumor.

“As the patient testimonials show, not all providers are open,” Best said. “When people experience travesties like these, how do you make it right?”

Equitas Health hopes to make it right in part by raising awareness around its services. Hence the upcoming event in Yellow Springs, which local resident Julee Terilli helped organize and underwrite. Equitas Health’s message is a natural fit for Yellow Springs, she said. “This is an open, loving, accepting community.”

Other community collaborators include the Little Art, which is donating the space, Antioch College and the Yellow Springs Chamber of Commerce.

Terilli added, “It’s just so important that people feel they have a loving health care home. I really want to help make people aware — there’s this resource for getting care.”

Brian Housh, who handles publicity for the Little Art, agreed. “Equitas Health resonates with our community, with being welcoming and treating people respectfully.” He’s personally been a supporter of AIDS Resource Center, and appreciates the organization’s expanded focus.

“As the [HealthOutLoud] vignettes show, there’s a need for this,” he said.

Best said the organization has some longtime supporters from Yellow Springs, and also already serves local residents. And Hardy pointed out that any college town needs to know that the “under 24 demographic” is especially at risk for new HIV infections, even as infections are declining overall.

But HIV, as critical as it remains, is no longer Equitas Health’s sole focus. Respectful, competent care for all members of the LGBTQ community, and anyone else seeking a medical home, is the health care provider’s new mission.

“We’re expanding our health care footprint,” said Hardy. “We’re so excited.”

Wellness Center launches fundraiser

Last week, Antioch launched $1 million community fundraising campaign to cover some of the $7.8 million cost of renovating its 44,000-square-foot Wellness Center. Already $700,000 of the total has been raised, including $500,000 from an anonymous donor and the rest from members of a fundraising committee.

While Antioch hopes villagers join as members to pay for the facility’s ongoing operation, an additional financial contribution will help the college defray its upfront capital costs, which Antioch is financing by taking out a loan against its endowment, committee members said.

“The community needs to say we appreciate the fact that the college has put in $7.8 million, and we as the community can put in $1 million —that is a powerful statement,” said committee member and Antioch alum Malte von Matthiessen.

Built in 1929, the facility, formerly known as the Curl Gymnasium, was last renovated in 1964.

Villagers can donate online at wellnesscenter.antiochcollege.org or by calling von Matthiessen at 937-657-3676, emailing him at mvmysi {at} gmail(.)com or contacting Antioch Wellness Center director Monica Hasek at 937-319-6139.

Since Antioch has yet to purchase much of the facility’s equipment, donations received by the end of the year will be spent on everything from a lifeguard chair to yoga balls to reduce the amount the college has to finance. Other needs at the facility include treadmills, recumbent bikes, elliptical machines, dumbbells, tennis court resurfacing, swimming pool lane lines, handicap lifts and more, and donations can be earmarked for specific purchases.

A grand opening celebration of the wellness center is set for Sept. 6, with regular hours beginning on Sept. 8. Memberships go on sale in mid August.

Donors who give at least $1,000 will receive an individual premium membership for one year, which includes unlimited fitness classes and is valued at $645, as well as their name on a brick on the patio in front of the facility. Those donating at least $2,500 will also get their name on a plaque inside the wellness center, while higher amounts come with naming opportunities. A gift of $25,000 gets a donor’s name on a racquetball or tennis court. Other naming opportunities are $35,000 for the visiting physician’s office, $75,000 for the rain garden, $1 million for the pool and $2.5 million for the entire facility.

As Hasek sees it, because the wellness center is a community asset that will benefit villagers, it makes sense that the college would ask for them to chip in for the center’s capital costs. The center is projected to operate at a deficit for several years with the expectation that about 800 people (including Antioch students, faculty, staff) will join the facility in its first year, Hasek said.

Other members of the fundraising committee are Donna Silvert, Naomi Ewald, Roger Reynolds, Fred Bartenstein, Elisabeth DeForest, Dorothy Roosevelt, Jennifer Jolls and Maureen Devine-Ahl.

Read the full story on the wellness center in the July 10 issue of the News.

A sneak peek of the new Antioch Wellness Center

Last weekend Antioch College opened to the public its 44,000-square foot Wellness Center currently undergoing a yearlong $8 million renovation. Antioch employees showed visitors some of the features the center will boast when it opens in September:

  • A renovated six-lane competition-length pool that uses a UV filtration system to minimize chlorine.
  • A therapeutic whirlpool.
  • Renovated locker rooms, a “grab and go” snack bar, and lounge area.
  • Numerous indoor courts on which to play basketball, volleyball, racquetball, badminton and “pickleball,” a 1960s game played with a racket now in vogue.
  • Several spaces for group classes like yoga, Pilates, Zumba and more.
  • The “South Gym” area renovated into a multipurpose room with banquet and conference space.
  • A preserved 1930s mural in the East Gym.
  • A large workout room in what was formerly the West Gym.
  • Use of re-purposed gym floors throughout the facility.
  • An office space for visiting health care practitioners.
  • Areas for massage and childcare.
  • ADA compliance throughout with an elevator that accesses all three stories.

Antioch will announce its membership rates in an insert in the July 3 issue of the News. All membership passes are “all in one,” providing access to the entire facility.

The center’s official grand opening is slated for Saturday, Sept. 6.

For more, read the News’ latest article on the Antioch Wellness Center: http://ysnews.com/news/2014/05/wellness-for-body-mind-community .

Wellness for body, mind, community

In its former life, the Antioch College gym had lots of windows but most were covered with boards. Now, the boards have been removed and the windows upgraded. Light streams through the 26 large, newly-visible windows in the building’s east and west wings (formerly the east and west gyms) while more light cascades from the swimming pool’s south wall of glass, as well as from new windows added to the pool’s north side. And light pours from new windows into the multipurpose room where yoga and tai chi classes will be held, as well as in studios soon to be available for classes and other gatherings.

Nearing the end of its $8 million, yearlong renovation, the new Antioch College Wellness Center will have an abundance of light. And that light serves many purposes, according to project lead Dorothy Roosevelt. It illustrates the revived college’s goal, in restoring its aging facilities, to highlight the strengths of a building while upgrading for improved functionality and energy use. The light conveys naturalness, spaciousness and openness, the qualities that leaders seek in the new facility. And light can also be seen as a symbol for the revived college.

“It’s a metaphor for an opening up, an expanding,” Roosevelt said in a recent interview. “It’s the college expanding into the community.”

Hasek new director
Roosevelt and Monica Hasek, the newly hired director of the center, were clearly enthused to take a visitor on a recent tour of the facility, which is expected to open in late summer or early fall. Walking in from the front entrance, a visitor first sees the lobby, soon to have couches and chairs arranged into groupings that provide spaces for people to come together, or just to hang out. Healthy snacks will be available and unlike many fitness facilities, there will be no piped in music or TV. Rather, at best, there will be, along with the sounds of people jogging or playing ball, the low hum of human voices, sharing ideas.

“I’d like things to bubble up here around wellness in the broadest sense, not only physical but social and emotional, and the wellness of the community,” Roosevelt said.

It’s a place where students and villagers, the old, the young and all in between, will be welcome.
“We’re excited to strengthen the connection between the village and college, to provide a meaningful way for people to come together around wellness,” Roosevelt said.

The recent hiring of Hasek, for 10 years the owner/director of Yoga Springs, as the center’s director was a step toward strengthening that bond between college and community, Roosevelt believes.

“That Monica is a villager is fabulous,” Roosevelt said, citing also Hasek’s business experience, energy and expertise around wellness and enthusiasm as strengths she’ll bring to the job.
Hasek, who is married to Yellow Springs News co-owner Robert Hasek, is also a professional interior designer and realtor. She takes the place of Becky Harrison, who was hired in February to head the facility but left two weeks ago. Harrison was not a good fit for the job, according to Roosevelt, even though the college followed an extensive search process before hiring her. When Harrison left just two weeks ago, college leaders wanted to move quickly to find a new director to keep the project moving ahead. And Hasek, with whom Roosevelt had met several times to discuss visions for the facility, seemed the obvious choice.

Thinking big is one of her passions, Hasek said, and she brings to the job a vision of Yellow Springs as a wellness destination, which she has nurtured for many years in her capacity at Yoga Springs.

“I feel I’m a pioneer in the community in bringing wellness practitioners together,” she said. Having collaborated with local yoga teachers for the past 10 years at Yoga Springs, she’s ready to expand her vision to create beneath one roof a central location for a wide variety of wellness trainers, facilitators and educators.

Initially, though, Hasek will have a full plate keeping the center on track, with programming activities, scheduling, ordering equipment, hiring an assistant director and filling several part-time positions and developing policies and procedures. She and Roosevelt are also working to create a membership cost structure, which they hope to keep competitive with regional wellness facilities. And Hasek will also soon launch fund-raising activities for the center.

It’s a lot of work, but it didn’t take long for Hasek to say yes to the job offer.

“When I got the phone call, I couldn’t resist,” Hasek said of the opportunity to “expand what I was already doing and create a broader wellness community.”

Flexibility is key
What villagers care about most is the pool, Roosevelt and Hasek agree, and they believe Yellow Springers will be pleased with the result of the year-long renovation. The new pool is seven inches longer than the old, to meet standard Olympic length, and a therapeutic whirlpool has been added. The room has been upgraded in many ways, with new lighting, new windows and the new glass wall to the south, out of which swimmers can see an expansive view of the outdoors, including a patio with tables and chairs.

The former east gym, once home of local volleyball leagues, will be the new home for basketball, volleyball, pickleball and badminton games. Boards were removed from the 14 ceiling-height windows, and the windows upgraded, among other changes. New to the whole building is the open floor plan, which allows those in the lobby to watch what’s going on in the gym. As much as possible in the new center, walls were removed to provide open space.

“The idea is to create a community center where you come to see others, a way to draw people together,” Roosevelt said.

The former west gym, once home of basketball leagues, is now the fitness area, which will house fitness equipment along with a walking/running track around the perimeter.

In between the east and west wings, a multipurpose room with a sprung dance floor that can hold 40 people will be available for a variety of uses, including dance, yoga, tai chi and aerobics. Like many of the center spaces, it is designed to fit many possible uses.

“We’re trying to create spaces that have as much flexibility as possible, to meet the needs of both the college and the community,” Roosevelt said, stating that the center illustrates the philosophy behind the whole campus renovation, in which fewer buildings will be used, but uses will be multi­plied, “so that rooms don’t sit empty.”

The building’s locker rooms have been upgraded top to bottom, and the second floor also offers a multipurpose studio space, where classes in such wellness activities as yoga or zumba might be offered. Along with new windows, the floors were refinished and lighting upgraded.

In the whole building, project leaders aim for energy efficiency and hope to meet the standard for a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, certification.

Roosevelt has a masters from Harvard Graduate School in Education in human development and psychology, and spent 10 years working as a researcher for Project Zero, a Harvard Education School program. Her research skills came in handy creating the new wellness center, as she gathered information to aid the planning and building process.

Married to College President Mark Roosevelt, Dorothy Roosevelt first worked in the college admissions office when her family moved to town. But she has practiced, and taught, yoga for years, and when the opportunity to help shape the wellness center presented itself, she immersed herself in the project.

Aside from the satisfaction of creating a new wellness center for the college and the community, Roosevelt is thrilled to help bring the old gym — built in 1929 — back to life.

“I think this building is beautiful,” she said. “I love bringing people together here.”

Leading the college to wellness

For the past six months there’s been a gaping hole at the back of Antioch College Curl Gym, where the pool used to be. But the renovation of the 85-year old building is closing in on a completion date sometime in July. And newly hired Wellness Center director Becky Harrison is keen to get the gym in its new digs operational. What the wellness center will become after that is open to everyone’s imagination, Harrison said in an interview earlier this month.

“Everything is possible — that’s why I love this project,” she said. “As I get into the personality of the facility and its users, it will grow — I’m open for it to change as the college grows.”

On a recent tour of the facility, still deep in rubble and dust, Harrison whirled about, chatting and joking with the construction crew and wending her way through the building like it was home already. Her excitement about creating what she sees as a place of wellness for the whole person was contagious.

“These types of facilities are so much more than just a gym … they’re almost like mini community centers,” Harrison said. “The possibilities are fascinatingly endless … when I get goose bumps, it’s a good day!”

She believes that everyone is on a personal journey to wellness of mind, body and spirit. The path includes taking care of the physical body, but also the social and emotional aspects of the individual.

“This center can talk to all those areas, including possibly massage and physical therapists and nurse consultants,” she said.

In overall terms, plans for the 44,000-square-foot Wellness Center have not changed significantly since the idea of a shared community-college fitness center was introduced more than a year ago. The official 25-yard pool (with ultraviolet disinfection system) and 10-person, handicapped accessible therapy pool with a patio extension are coming along. The basketball and racquetball courts are under way, as is “West Gym,” where the fitness and weight room with a track around the perimeter will be located. The central locker rooms will be completely refurbished, as will the restrooms and the warming kitchen in South Gym, a multipurpose performance space that can be turned into a theater or banquet hall. Two additional group fitness spaces are currently under construction, including a smaller room on the first floor for yoga or pilates, and a 3,500-square-foot room upstairs for larger activities, such as kickboxing, zumba or indoor soccer. An adjacent room on the second floor could be used for yoga, meditation or possibly as a child watch center. And still a third-floor loft that looks over the second floor could be used as a lounge and storage area.

But Harrison is keeping open as many options as possible to ensure that the Wellness Center develops organically as an extension of both the college and the Yellow Springs community members who will be using it.

“Nothing is set in stone yet — we’re examining the budget and asking what is this facility capable of? What activities will be happening in each room? … It’s going to come from our members, students, faculty, and the community.”

Harrison comes to the college with 15 years of experience as the assistant director of the recreation and wellness center at Vanderbilt University, her alma mater. After studying recreation and education at Ohio State University, she received a master’s in health promotion at Vanderbilt and went right to work helping to promote student wellness, and group fitness and running a personal training program at the school with 12,000 undergraduate and graduate students in Nashville, Tenn.

Though Antioch is leagues smaller than where she came from, Harrison was attracted to the opportunity to start something new and help design it from the ground up, she said.

“What really excites me about this job and the new facility is I get the chance to build and grow a program and make it sustainable,” she said.

And her return to Ohio mirrors somewhat the college’s own rebirth. Harrison grew up in Zanesville, left the state after college, and is now returning to her Midwest roots, newly married in October and currently living in Beavercreek.

“The welcome I’ve gotten at the college and in the community has been wonderful,” she said.

According to Dorothy Roosevelt, who assumed responsibility for the initial phase of design and construction for the Wellness Center, the $8 million project is still on budget and expected to achieve LEED certification. Roosevelt expects to step back once construction is completed to let Harrison take the lead.

“Dorothy has done a fantastic job — I want to say thank you to her,” Harrison said.

Harrison hopes to be able to hire either one full-time or two part-time staff members, as well as a host of part-time class instructors, a pool manager and guards, and welcome desk and janitorial personnel. A membership structure for the Wellness Center has yet to be decided, but Harrison said the goal is to get membership fees within range of area YMCAs. Community input is appreciated, and Harrison invites people to seek her out by emailing, calling or visiting her in her temporary office in South Hall. She also invites community members to check the college website in May for publicity about pricing and virtual tours of the new space. Public tours and open houses will be scheduled once the facility receives its occupancy permit, and Harrison moves to her office at the front of the new building. She is excited for a strong beginning, but wants to ensure its longevity.

“I believe in the concept of health at every size and health at every age, and we’re doing our best to make this facility long-term stable and fiscally responsible.”