City O’Fallon Parks and Recreation ACHIEVE Grant
In April 2009 the City of O’Fallon, Missouri Parks and Recreation Department was chosen as one of 10 communities to receive the ACHIEVE grant supported by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and partnered with the National Parks and Recreation Association. A total of 43 communities were chosen in all and have other partnerships with the CDC. The purpose of ACHIEVE is to bring together local leaders and stakeholders to build healthier communities by promoting policy, systems, and environmental change strategies that focus on physical activity, nutrition, tobacco cessation, obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Upon receiving the grant the O’Fallon Live Well Coalition was formed and the team includes members from local businesses, government, school district, hospital, county and the parks and recreation division.
As part of ACHIEVE and our Community Action Plan identified goals that we felt were important to the community as a whole. The current focus of the O’Fallon Live Well Coalition is to improve the lives of the citizens of O’Fallon by educating them on living a healthy lifestyle through appropriate diet and exercise. Our immediate efforts include the passing a bicycle helmet law, educational outreach to citizens, and by the incorporation of safe walking/biking trails and paths for transportation to school, work, and business as well as for recreational purposes.
As for the improvement and addition of walkable/bikeable sidewalk paths and trails we have lined up a walkability tour with Trailnet for the Spring of 2010. We are putting together a presentation comparing the City of O’Fallon with communities that have systems in place which heavily promote safe non-motorized transportation. We are also working on mapping out existing trails to make sure that they connect. This will help us put together a system of “Sneaker Friendly” routes that are clearly labeled for those who wish to use them. For those trails that are not connected, we will be looking at what will need to be done to connect these trails.
It is our hopes that this group of leaders will be able to continue to make O’Fallon one of the best places to live.
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