Health Department Gets 200K to Improve Community Wellness
By: Kim Behrens
Updated: September 27, 2012
MCLEAN COUNTY--A $200,000 state grant is helping the health department fight smoking and obesity.
The new money comes from the "We Choose Health" initiative which works to improve community wellness.
The department will give a portion of those dollars to local schools, businesses, and organizations with a proven plan to promote public health.
Those include anti-tobacco and physical education strategies.
Healthy Department Director Walter Howe says by helping people lose weight now; fewer dollars will be spent on future medical care.
"Prevention is the number one initiative in maintaining health, so as long as we can keep people healthy you don't have to make them well," explained Howe. "That's key and that's our number one issue."
Organizations have until October seventeenth to apply for the grant money.
For more information, log onto http://health.mcleancountyil.gov/index.aspx?NID=291
The new money comes from the "We Choose Health" initiative which works to improve community wellness.
The department will give a portion of those dollars to local schools, businesses, and organizations with a proven plan to promote public health.
Those include anti-tobacco and physical education strategies.
Healthy Department Director Walter Howe says by helping people lose weight now; fewer dollars will be spent on future medical care.
"Prevention is the number one initiative in maintaining health, so as long as we can keep people healthy you don't have to make them well," explained Howe. "That's key and that's our number one issue."
Organizations have until October seventeenth to apply for the grant money.
For more information, log onto http://health.mcleancountyil.gov/index.aspx?NID=291
