Analyzing how the community of Green Bay, Wisconsin promotes Health and Wellness through resources and funding.
An educated personal take from the blog of Ryan Rickard as of September 2020.
A note from the author: With recent trends in health and wellness centers as well as gyms closing due to the COVID-19 Coronavirus Pandemic, I dedicated this detailed story post to research how my community cares for the health and well-being of their citizens through resources and funding. I chose Green Bay, Wisconsin, as it is the city, I am currently living in. According to the Census Bureau at census.gov, Green Bay is the third largest city in Wisconsin and has a population of roughly 104,879 people (2018).
With new and fast-paced changes in cultural norms such as social distancing, self-quarantining, and staying at home, it can be difficult for some people to adjust to this new lifestyle. Much of the community have seen their daily lives and the daily lives of others change dramatically. Over the past two to three months many small businesses, dining establishments, public gathering centers, and gyms have completely closed their doors. One thing that shouldn’t change during this time is health and wellness habits.
As described the World Health Organization (1940), health is a state of being, whereas wellness is the state of living a healthy lifestyle (Stoewen, 2015). These terms fit nicely with the idea of fitness, more commonly used today by the average person, which could be described as a condition of being bodily healthy and physically fit.
Fitness is achievable on a personal level through consistent personal improvement training. This comes in many familiar shapes and forms such as playing sports, dancing, running, weightlifting, etc. Fitness could also be achievable on a community level with support from local organizations and business willing to help promote individual health and fitness from a larger scale.
For example, in the community of Green Bay, Wisconsin, a non-profit leader in many forms of community funding is the Greater Green Bay Community Foundation (GGBCF). The GGBCF is a community organization that provides grants as recourses to individuals, groups, and organizations within the community to aid current or future community needs (GGBCF, 2020). According to their community reports GGBCF has partnered with over 500 community businesses since 2014 and more than 40 of these have been health focused organizations.
Greater Green Bay Community Foundation’s contributions towards Green Bay’s community health and wellness are shown through two of their areas of emphasis entitled Health and Sports. Through looking at their community report publications from 2014-2019 one can begin to understand how a local organization can make a large-scale impact on community health and wellness. The following graphs show the total percentages of the overall grants given to organizations in the heath and sports areas of interest as well as the number of organizations included each year in each area.
Some important trends to note from these statistics…
· There were substantial rises in percentages from the overall number of grants given to health organizations from 2015-2016 (6% to 11%) and 2018-2019 (6% to 13%).
· The number of sports organizations included in grants moved from 6 organizations to 15 organizations from 2016 to 2017.
· In 2018 and 2019 Greater Green Bay Community Foundation did not report how many organizations specifically they provided grants to.
· While the sports area of interest is completely removed in 2018 and 2019 a few organizations were still provided support and were moved to the “youth development” category.
Other important highlights of the Greater Green Bay Community Foundation reports include…
· The 2017 community report shares an entire story on Resch Miracle Field (a special needs baseball park).
· The 2018 community report shares features on the Boys & Girls club and Hands on Deck (kids boating program).
· The year 2019 sees an all-time high in health-based grants (13%) and their community report shares features on Green Bay Packer Give Back, Bellin Health, and the J.J. Keller Foundation.
· Human Services (self-sustaining lifestyles) receives the most grants consistently every year averaging 30%. This is not pictured in the above graphs.
· Other interest areas grants are provided to include human services, animal welfare, arts and culture, community improvement, education, environment and conservation, international, public benefit, religion & ministries, and general scholarships.
From these statistics it is shown that the GGBCF has made an impact on community health and wellness for Green Bay and could possibly be a leader in fitness changes for the area. Although this organization focuses on more than just health and wellness it could be viewed as a beginner’s example on how an organization could become a driving force for a community’s health and wellness from a larger scale. This group is just scratching the surface of what could be done by providing grants to other organizations to make a change. If a community were to see an organization of this size be completely health focused significant action could take place for community fitness.
Beyond this large-scale organization, it is also important to highlight some significant smaller organizations impacting community fitness. These are more common facilities located in many cities and larger towns such as gyms, fitness centers, health and wellness centers, community programs, and parks. These smaller organizations may also be beneficial for some fitness seekers as they often are more individually centered. Green Bay, Wisconsin is home to 66 public parks (GreenBayWi.gov., 2020), 22 public gyms (GoogleMaps, 2020), and 20 health and wellness centers (GoogleMaps, 2020). The city is also partially known for its many community-based running events including the Bellin Run, Green Bay Packers 5k Run, Green Bay Cellcom Marathon, and several other races.
During this time of change it is especially important to stay mentally and physically fit through health and wellness awareness. After reading of these examples from the community of Green Bay, Wisconsin, simply Google Search “gyms near me” or “health and wellness centers near me” to learn more about local opportunities outside of home.
References used in this blog post:
GGBCF. (2020). Publications. Retrieved from https://www.ggbcf.org/About/Publications
GGBCF. (2020). Building a Stronger Community: About GGBCF. Retrieved from https://www.ggbcf.org/About/About-GGBCF
GoogleMaps. (2020). Retrieved from https://maps.google.com/
GreenBayWI.gov. (2020). Parks & Facility Rentals: Green Bay, WI. Retrieved from https://greenbaywi.gov/503/Parks-Facility-Rentals
Stoewen, D. L. (2015, September). Health and wellness. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4535518/
US Census Bureau. (2020). Census.gov. Retrieved from https://www.census.gov/
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