Thrive working to help residents stay healthy

Thrive Southern Lorain County collaborative looks to help create healthy habits. Plus find Focus: Wellington

Thrive Southern Lorain County, a health collaborative through United Way of Greater Lorain County, looks to help prevent metabolic syndrome.

Thrive, founded in 2016, is looking to continue making living healthy affordable for folks in the southern part of the county. It also looks to provide opportunities through active living, eating healthy and social/emotional support.

“We are currently going through a series on what is metabolic syndrome,” said Carol Burke, facilitator for Thrive. “It covers conditions like obesity, diabetes, stroke and heart disease.

“A lot of folks don’t know what metabolic syndrome is so we started doing this information series about different parts of metabolic syndrome,” she said. “The first one we did was successful, so we will try and do those once a month through December. It is something we felt would really inform the public because it can be a difficult topic if you are not familiar with the different aspects.”

Burke said Thrive is working with LIFE: A Dementia Friendly Foundation for their Memory Cafe.

“It’s something that we do on Mondays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at New Life Assembly

Church (108 West St., Wellington),” she said. “It’s geared to provide support for caregivers. Activities are designed around dementia, but also for those who are caregivers. We have exercise, music, crafts and games.”

Burke said the group has also done work site days.

“We have set up to offer our work site days for Wellington employees,” she said. “We had fitness screenings, blood pressure, taken by Mercy (Health) Occupational Services, visions tests and chemistry profiles.

“These were tests done not for the village to see, but to show workers where they are at health wise,” she continued. “It gives a good indication for folks and the reaction was positive.”

Burke said Thrive has also partnered with Wellington Schools.

“Along with the Wellington School Endowment Fund, we helped purchase a community tower garden,” she said. “The garden will be located in the Wellington High School greenhouse.”

Burke said the garden will have multiple uses.

“It’s a big thing for a lot of FFA students in Wellington High School,” she said. “Some of them don’t have the farm at home, and they need the experience growing the vegetables for their project.

“It’s also simpler with no dirt needed and a water nutrition system that grows the plants,” she added. “It will provide year-round produce that can be shared by students or sold; we are still figuring out how we want to do that. It will also be something that can be educational for the younger grades. I feel it’s something that will be beneficial for the schools and the community with a lot of different applications.”

Burke said cardiovascular workouts are also a big part of the mission.

“We hold walks in Westwood (Elementary School, 305 Union St., Wellington),” she said. “It’s what we do as a way for folks to get exercise during the cold months. For the warmer months, we are looking into having access to the Wellington High

School track (Dickson Field, 398 Dickson St.) for walking as well.”

Burke said Thrive wouldn’t be possible without the United Way of Greater Lorain County.

“They sponsor and pay for everything we do, we couldn’t do it without them,” she said. Folks can look at our calendar on our website to see what events are coming. We are always adding different activities like chair yoga that helps you get active. We also have a list of nutritious recipes on there that folks can access.”

Find more about Wellington in Focus on page E1.