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Program focuses on healthier communities By SUE WATSON
Staff Writer  | Photo by Sue Watson
Site visit
Mayor Andre’ DeBerry (second from right) leads a leadership team on a walking tour of Holly Springs. |
Healthy Kids/Healthy Communities continues to get attention in Holly Springs. Holly
Springs and Byhalia were among several municipalities in DeSoto, Benton
and Marshall counties that got a site visit from the Northwest
Mississippi Community Foundation leadership team and the program
officer for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s national program. The
team met with mayor Andre’ DeBerry, aldermen Harvey Payne, Johnnie Ree
Bagley and Russell Johnson, and with Main Street Association members
and director Judy Smith, as well as Cissy Cox with the Mississippi
Department of Health and local committees. Mark
Dessauer, communication director, and Fay Gibson, project officer with
Active Living By Design in Chapel Hill North Carolina, participated in
a walking tour of the town. Also on hand were Shelly Johnstone,
consultant, and Peggy Linton, community development director, with the
community foundation, Donna Cothern with the Marshall County
administrator’s office, and Lorena Adams, nurse with Holly Springs
Primary School. Adams is chair of the Marshall County Community Health
Council.  | Photo by Sue Watson
Touring downtown
The Healthy Kids/Healthy Communities group visits the square in downtown Holly Springs. |
They explained that healthy kids and
communities can be attained through a variety of community activities
through churches and schools as well as by government support of these
projects. A key concept of Healthy Kids/Healthy
Communities and other programs that offer new approaches for solutions
for old problems endemic in the South, such as obesity and
cardiovascular disease and diabetes, can be imagined and implemented in
communities if the communities themselves decide what they want to
achieve and how they want to approach problem-solving. “We
will be working with our local elected officials and the Bouchillon
Institute for Community Planning in offering training that relates to
healthy communities with emphasis on policies and environmental changes
that lead to healthy eating and active living,” Linton said. The
community foundation is working with governments to seek changes in
laws and in the environment itself that will assist people in making
healthier choices - nutritional choices and exercise and
community-based initiatives. The Holly Springs
Main Street Association is a partner with NWCF in seeking to establish
a local farmers’ market in the city next spring and to encourage
producers to participate and homeowners to get back to nature by
growing a garden. For more information contact Judy Smith with the Main Street Association at 551-8396. |
