Montgomery County Health Department employee Luke Wren and Franciscan St Elizabeth Director of Mission Integration Sister Ruth Luthmar have a chat at Tuesday's Montgomery County Health Summit.
Dr. John Bottorff of Advanced Chiropratic and Crawfordsville Park and Recreation Director Fawn Johnson manned their organization's booth at Tuesday's Montgomery County Health Summit.
Volunteers at the Montgomery County Health Department Booth pass out information to an attendee at Tuesday's Montgomery County Health Forum.
Give-a-ways, healthy food, entertainment, information on living a healthy lifestyle and smiles were all a part of Tuesday’s 2016 Montgomery County Community Health Summit sponsored by the Montgomery County Wellness Coalition. The event was organized to better promote all aspects of living a healthy lifestyle in Montgomery County.
“I am thrilled with the turnout,” coalition member and County Health Department Sanitarian Amber Reed said. “The coalition has been working on this for a long time and I am excited the people are coming out.”
Summit participants set up 30 booths inside the Montgomery County 4H Building providing information pertaining to how their organization is a part of the health scene in the county.
Sister Ruth Luthmar of Franciscan St. Elizabeth Health — Crawfordsville was in attendance and helping man the hospital’s booth. She was pleased with the event.
“This is exciting to see the people come out for this event,” Luthmar said. “We are happy to be a part of it.”
Crawfordsville Pride intertained attendees by presenting their show that they are taking to the national PRIDE event later this week. PRIDE shows help educate students and others about making good life choices.
At 6 p.m. a series of speakers took the stage and addressed local health issues.
Crawfordsville Mayor Todd Barton spoke about the underlying theme of improving healthy living in the community and how healthy lifestyles are an integral part of Stellar projects.
Next Barton joined Franciscan St. Elizabeth — Crawfordsville Chief Operating office Terry Klein and Crawfordsville Fire Department Chief of EMS to discuss the upcoming Para Medicine Project. The new program will allow medical patients to have home visits from paramedics for many of the services patients are returning to the hospital for. The new program is a county-wide effort.
Klein then spoke about the coming new emergency room addition that is to be constructed at the local hospital.
Other speakers included Indiana State District 31 Senator Jim Merritt, and Jennifer Walthall, M.D.
Finally, Nancy Sennett, president of the Montgomery County Health Board, unveiled the three main issues the health department will be addressing to improve the county’s health. The three areas identified are children’s health, drug abuse and mental health. The
department provided their action plan on how they will tackle each problem with the cooperation of the community.
Reed said the summit was just a continuation of previous efforts by the Wellness Coalition Board. She also said the event is just the first step for providing important health information to community members.
“This is the platform to get information out to the public so they will understand how so many things affect community health,” Reed said. “We understand how this all comes together, and this is a great way to help the community understand it all better.”
