KINGSPORT — Healthy Kingsport gives people a chance to walk the walk.
The organization, which has been in existence more than a decade, helps provide programs such as the 4 Million Mile Challenge, tobacco-free campuses and living sugar-free.
“Healthy Kingsport is dedicated to creating a community that actively embraces healthy living by promoting wellness, enhancing infrastructure and influencing policy,” Aisha Banks, its executive director, said.
The roots of the program started around 2010 when a group of community members, led by the Greater Kingsport Family YMCA, saw a need to battle obesity, unhealthy living and tobacco use.
Now the organization is involved with multiple partners across the area to promote healthy living and being active.
“Our work is accomplished by virtue of the Collective Impact Model — a best practice for solving complex, pressing social issues,” Banks said.
“This model works because it is designed around a backbone organization (Healthy Kingsport), which serves as a convener of many organizations working toward a common agenda with shared measurement, reinforcing activities, and continuous communication.”
An upcoming initiative is the Walk for Wellness Expo, which will take place April 23 at the Lynn View Community Center track.
There will also be a special announcement.
“This year’s event will be particularly noteworthy because Healthy Kingsport hopes to announce the community’s achievement of becoming the 4 Million Mile City,” Banks said. “Kingsport is positioned to become the first community in the United States to collectively move 4 million miles.”
Individuals and teams of community members will be recognized at the event.
Besides teaming up with businesses to help promote such things as tobacco-free campuses, the organization is also busy providing water bottle refilling stations within Kingsport schools to promote the usage of drinking water over other beverages.
Banks said there are 75 refilling stations in Kingsport schools, and more are coming this year.
She said research shows there has been a 34% spike in anti-anxiety medication prescriptions since the COVID-19 pandemic. She said a new program Healthy Kingsport will address that.
“Healthy Kingsport’s approach to this widespread issue would be to provide appropriate resources and make the community aware that ‘you are not alone in this fight,’ ” Banks said.
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