Healthy Connections

A new group formed in Greenfield exists to foster true connections and healthy relationships within their community, empowering others to prioritize mental well-being and supporting each other on their journey to wellness.

Started by Whitney Lewis of Greenfield, Adair County Healthy Connections is truly about what its name says. A part of Project Recovery Iowa, which offered grant-funded mental health services to the area following the tornado through earlier this year, Lewis wanted to find a way to continue serving the community after Project Recovery Iowa’s grant funding ended.

“Through Project Recovery, we have hours and hours of education and continuing education. When the grant ended, I felt lost and wondered what I’m going to do now,” Lewis said. Another opportunity through Project Recovery Iowa was presented, but Lewis decided that if she is going to volunteer, she wants to in her own community that has given so much to her.

“This community has lifted me up in the darkest of times,” Lewis said. “I would rather put my efforts back into our community. Instead of joining another organization, I’m going to stay home and make one here. My vision is that Healthy Connections is going to be an organization that has longevity here, that it’s going to stick around.”

Lewis began forming this organization by assembling a board of people who come from a variety of perspectives.

“It’s connections. We have people from the hospital here, we’ve been working with the school, the library, the Greater Greenfield Community Foundation, the ministerial association,” Pastor Melinda Stonebraker of Greenfield United Methodist Church said. “There are lots of connections.”

“It’s probably going to continue to evolve, depending on what we’re doing at the time,” Senior Life Solutions’ Kori Newbury said.

Stonebraker says GUMC has focused on brain health for awhile now, since Caidynce Schwartz’s passing. To join in with Healthy Connections was a good fit. After the tornado, she saw a need for better coordination of the various mental health resources that are available.

Newbury and Amanda Rivera see the need for broader mental health avenues for all, not just in the 65 and older population SLS serves.

“Mental health and making a difference — to feel like you belong, you matter and are making a difference in someone’s life — is an important component to mental health,” Stonebraker said. “To hear that in our community conversations, that’s brought up often, that people want to give back.”

In processing requests for assistance following the tornado, the Greater Greenfield Community Foundation quickly learned there’s a need for mental health services in the community. Once people took care of immediate needs from the tornado, reality set in and so did other mental health needs.

Some said they weren’t prepared for the tornado, and that carried with it an immense struggle.

“Some people are willing to talk about that with financial things, even though they’re very private about their finances. They’re even less likely to talk about how they were not prepared to navigate their own emotions,” Stonebraker said. “We haven’t done a great job of teaching people to understand our emotions and that our emotions are a gift to us to communicate something. We can receive them and evaluate what we should do about this.”

Adair County Healthy Connections hosted a barbecue for the community earlier this summer and will continue a program called Community Conversations. The next edition of this is Aug. 25 at Greenfield United Methodist Church.

“When I think of this group I think of a sense of community. I’ve had the privilege of working with all ages but oftentimes what I’ve seen is us not understanding the other person,” Rivera said. “When we come together in community altogether, it’s about understanding each other in a different way. Through that, we can be a better community by building that connection.”

To reach out for more information about Adair County Healthy Connections, visit their Facebook page or email achealthyconnections@gmail.com.