ANDERSON — Urban trails. An all-ages playground. Sidewalks. A food hub.
These are some of the ideas a group of more than 25 interested residents threw out when they were asked to envision what a health district in Anderson might look like.
The first public phase of the Healthy Places for Healthy People project in Anderson took place over two days. A public forum was held on Tuesday to gather ideas and opinions from the community, and then people worked with those ideas the next day and brainstormed to create action plans.
Anderson was one of 10 communities in the country selected to participate in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency pilot program, Healthy Places for Healthy People.
By the end of the full day of the workshop, large pieces of white paper and different colored sticky notes were plentiful in the room at the Anderson Museum of Art.
Some of the large pieces of paper had different challenges and opportunities that the group came up with written on them. Others were covered with sticky notes of ideas and needs split into the four main goals of the project: mapping existing opportunities, seeding an “Active Anderson,” designing a village health district plot and relaunching downtown revitalization.
Creating health districts or building neighborhoods around hospitals and health institutions is part of the designed Healthy Places for Healthy People project, but most of the plan is unique to Anderson, said Margot Brown of the EPA. Representatives from the EPA and Renaissance Planning have done these two-day workshops that begin with a community tour in four other communities so far.
Brown said she was impressed with the amount of resources already available in Anderson. She said creating better communication among those resources would be an asset.
“I think the biggest issue is the marketing of the programs that are already here and the services that already here,” she said. “There are so many amazing already things going on.”
Katie Rooney of Renaissance Planning led discussions throughout the workshop and helped people organize their action plans. After gathering ideas, participants broke into groups to work on the specific plan for each goal.
Renaissance Planning and EPA representatives have done research on the communities before holding the initial workshops, but the 48 hours in each community are crucial.
“It’s a really quick, dynamic process,” Rooney said.
Now that the workshops are over, Rooney said she will take the information gathered and rough drafts of action plans made in Anderson to put together a detailed 15-page report of what people can start working on immediately.
Each initiative on each goal’s action plan has an estimated amount of time it will take to complete, at least the initial phase of the action. Some of the initiatives will take a year or two while others can be completed in three months or six months.
When it comes to mapping existing living opportunities, the goals are fairly short term. Members of the group working on those initiatives said they think the community should be surveyed to gather all resources for recreation and health. With that information, an online database could be made with physical maps showing where resources are that could be available in print and online, and a master plan of trails in town could be made.
Marketing was discussed in building an “Active Anderson” brand. The group suggested building a strong brand identity for the city of Anderson with a digital strategy featuring heavy use of social media.
The participants recognized the rise in businesses downtown, but creating more art and culture downtown and promoting events downtown is something that the overall project will focus on as well.
The health district concept will be new to Anderson, but Brown said it is beneficial to have communities built around hospitals with resources to influence a healthier community. While the first one would be around Community Hospital Anderson, Ryan Phelps of the Madison County Council of Governments said the long-term plan is to build similar but personalized districts around St. Vincent Anderson Hospital, Madison County Community Health Center, Jane Pauley Community Health Center at the Wigwam and Anderson University, which would cover a good amount of Anderson.
Phelps, who submitted Anderson’s application for the EPA program’s consideration, said he wasn’t expecting rebranding for the city to be part of the plan. However, he said it is needed, and he has had talks before with city officials to bring a positive reputation to Anderson.
“Even if you go across the state, Anderson has kind of a negative perception, but there’s so much good going on here that we need to be highlighting,” he said.
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