Ode to Wellness Champions…
“You find small melodies wherever you look and listen.” ~ The Vegetable Orchestra.
We’ve missed our standard blog posts this week because we’ve been out on the road training more than 80 Maine school district wellness leaders to be PATH Adventure Coordinators.
While traipsing across all corners of the state, from the foggy Portland seaside to the cozy Augusta capitol, to the snowbound potato farming hills of Presque Isle, we have been wholly inspired.
For those of you who may think we landed in the middle of nowhere, you are wrong. Though the snow is plentiful and the woods are vast, though it’s a long way from cubicles and bright city lights, the drum beat of wellness is loud and clear, refined and robust. This beat leaps from the hearts of the local wellness champions we met this week.
We met health educators, school nurses, PE teachers, classroom teachers, librarians, HR directors, superintendents, food service professionals, front office staff, and even facilities folks, who, if I closed my eyes, could have been part of any school system in America. All of them bent toward the same goal: keep my workplace fabulous and healthy. Why? In part because it’s personal (wellness always is) and in part because they know (and embody) the ounce of prevention secret: the “do nothing” strategy simply isn’t an option. If we do nothing about the current state of affairs in our nation’s health, the next generation will be the first in history to live shorter lives than their parents.
Thus the heart of a wellness champion is “ginormous.” And they really are champions, by the way, as we know they don’t commit their right arm to this work, above and beyond what they already do for American families in their massively intense day job, because they expect fame or fortune. Their drive and passion to help their co-workers build a better quality of life are palpable, rousing, and inescapable.
It inspires me that, no matter how small the budget or how limited the resources, they find a way to bring stalwart best practices in health promotion literally to the far corners of the nation. They do so with every bit of rigor and attention to excellence as those in snappy corporate settings who boast gobs of resources and support.
It inspires me that they hop up, dust off, and start again each time a poorly informed community member knocks them down; when a tax payer chastises them for walking during their teacher prep time, for example. Oh the irony of that. Would we rather have them in “work jail?” Do we not want them to role model healthy behaviors? Do we not want them to be their best, thinking at the best? So are we not want to engage in preventive care to help reduce the heavy burden of health care costs on the school budget?
It inspires me when Susan, a librarian, arrives at our training, entering the building in the gust of a blizzard wearing a big, cheerful felt hat, a yummy, swinging shawl coat and the cutest darn lady bug patterned rubber boots you’ve ever seen; all topped off with a beaming “good morning! Thanks for coming to Maine. I’m wildly crazy about exercise and I’m doing all I can to get my colleagues equally jazzed, so bring it on.”
I’m inspired by Jean the nurse who monitors her colleagues’ blood pressures “because she can.” Have you ever shadowed a school nurse? They barely have time to breathe let alone spare concern for staff. Jean chooses to champion the cause even though she’s not eligible for the cash reward. “Oh, I don’t care about the money, just give me to tools so I can deliver and off we go!” I’m telling you, enormous, no GINORMOUS hearts.
I’m inspired by Holly who watches the administrative structure of her district and her grant funded job crumble and rebuild time and again around her while she stands in the middle, steady as a mountain, bearing gifts of PATH along with staff wellness days, healthy eating challenges, walking clubs, and Zumba classes (though we had spotted her as more of a powerful Pilates girl — shows-to-go-ya: never try to predict or dictate how someone else’s wellness ought to go. There’s a world of possibilities out there).
These inspirations are the norm, not the exception (even though they are exceptional). There are too many stories to tell in one blog. Each person I met here inspired me because their circumstances made it seem as though they ought not to succeed and yet they are some of the most solid and creative wellness leaders I’ve met. They mirror some of the successful champions we know in Texas, Iowa, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Alaska. They continue to teach me and I continue to be amazed by the following: The more we are unique in our wellness melodies, the more our chorus is the same, and the more we are, therefore, all in it together, sharing comfort in the commonalities and welling up in the excitement of innovative minds meeting. There is nothing like a PATH Coordinator conference!
Tomorrow is our last day with our new friends and, in person or away, I’m excited to continue to be inspired by those who seemingly “can’t” in so-called “no-where”. No such a thing. The little engine that could is chug-a-lugging along Maine’s byways, fueled by a myriad of little divine melodies in the most unlikely of places and we are so proud to be on board!
Let us know how you’ve been inspired by workplace wellness leaders. Share your melodies here!
We’ll return to our regularly scheduled blogging next week.