- Elizabeth Larson
- Posted On
Blue Zones Project team prepares for weekend launch, works to finalize guiding blueprint
The Blue Zones Project Community Kickoff and inaugural Hope4Health Festival/Hope in the Park Concert will take place on Saturday, May 14, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Austin Park in Clearlake.
Jamey Gill, executive director of Blue Zones Project Lake County, said the project is partnering with its sponsor organization, Adventist Health Clear Lake, to present the event.
Gill said the Blue Zones Experience aspect of the event will take place from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., and will feature food, information booths, health services including free vaccines, and children’s activities including a petting zoo and bicycle safety.
Other offerings will include dog adoptions, a kayak giveaway and a daylong pickleball demonstration by the Lake County Tennis Club.
At noon there will be a talk by Nick Buettner, vice president of community engagement and producer of Blue Zones Expeditions. He is the brother of Dan Buettner, author of “The Blue Zones” and “The Blue Zones Solution.”
That will be followed by the inaugural Hope in the Park Concert featuring the music of Unity Voices, which will take place from 3 to 5 p.m. at the park’s band stage.
Gill said the event is meant to introduce the Blue Zones to Lake County. The goal is that visitors to the festival leave with the feeling that “the healthy choice can be the easy choice.”
“We have been in our foundation and planning phase for Blue Zones since October when the team came on board,” said Gill.
She said the steering committee and leadership team have almost completed their blueprint, or strategic plan, which will direct the project’s first year of activity. “We’re very much still in an exploration stage.”
The group also is working to decide on its marquee project, which will be unveiled early in the four-year initial project.
“This is a huge undertaking,” said Gill.
Part of the work involves studying what work is already being done to improve Lake County’s health outcomes — some of the worst in the state — and offer support to elevate those efforts, Gill said.
Gill said the strategic plan has goals and objectives that will be signed off on the steering committee on things we will focus on for the next four years. “Obviously, we can’t focus on everything,” she said, noting the many great ideas coming their way.
“The goal is at the end of four years, we will become a certified Blue Zone Project Community,” Gill said.
They will have to meet certain goals to do that, one of which is encouraging organizations, worksites and schools to register with them if they want to become Blue Zones approved.
So far, they have more than 10 such organizations, including Foods, Etc. in Clearlake, which has signed up to be the first Blue Zones approved grocery store in Lake County.
Another early adopter is the Lake County Library, which set up a walking moai, a group of friends that walks and talks together, Gill said. Moais gather in Lakeport at 8:30 a.m. on Thursdays and 10 a.m. on Saturdays in Middletown.
Gill said another group that also is actively participating is the Kelseyville Sunrise Rotary, which is working stretching and other healthy practices into its meetings.
Blue Zones can be tailored to meet the needs of the community, Gill said.
She said the Blue Zones format offers a model, and there are 70 such projects now at work across the nation. There are six within Adventist Health’s footprint. Gill said a community comparable to Lake County is Corry, Pennsylvania, a rural area in the northwestern part of that state.
“We do have so many great things happening in our community,” she added.
For more information about the Lake County Blue Zones project, visit https://lc.bluezonesproject.com/home.
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