Want to get healthier?

By Darryl Wilkinson

For six years a movement to foster healthy communities in Northwest Missouri and parts of Kansas, Iowa and Nebraska has been underway and largely unobserved in Daviess County. Maybe that’s about to change.

A small but growing group of local citizens have been preparing for a public forum to focus on livability issues in Gallatin — topic like health care, volunteer programs, youth programs, economic development, transportation. Virtually any topic that comprises “community” is included. If you think something could be better in Gallatin, now’s your chance not only to voice your interest but to join others similarly interested in making this a better place to live and work.

This grassroots approach for community betterment follows a regional forum held last September offered through Heartland Regional Community Foundation and Northwest Missouri State University. Their interest is simple. They assist others (us) to help themselves. They want to help stretch local volunteer efforts. The Healthy Communities program offers towns like Gallatin some assistance to help themselves. Sometimes that help is merely sharing information about the successes and failures of other towns. More often, the help involves time management, readjusting focus, and keeping “organization” from becoming a burden.

Gallatin is ripe for renewed effort focusing on community betterment. During the past 30 years since the construction of Lake Viking, community betterment activities in Gallatin have been sporadic. It has been years since Gallatin has organized a Chamber of Commerce or similar civic group; the most recent effort was the Gallatin Community Development Association which organized about a decade ago. More recent work by the Gallatin Industrial Development Authority was more narrowly focused on economic development. The need for improving this community and broader quality of life issues is becoming more acute. Renewed effort is necessary.

There is no hidden agenda because there is no agenda for Gallatin as yet. If the program is embraced here, it will be molded by its participants. An effort is underway to see if a cross section of Gallatin – perhaps as many as 30 to 50 people – might assemble to evaluate the benefits of such an effort. This newspaper hopes to share the thoughts of a few of those interested in Gallatin’s future in newspaper articles to come. Meanwhile, if you get the chance, visit with Dorothy Griggs, Nancy Tate or Shonna Morrison among others. You might be surprised to see the names of Gallatin youth crop up in these discussions, such as Allison Spidle, Trent Dowell, Nathan Henderson or Courtney Houghton among others.

Pattonsburg understands what it takes. We applaud efforts underway there to think positive, to coordinate volunteer efforts and identify goals. Pattonsburg citizens have a spanking new town and yet they understand any town, new or old, will never be anything more than what its own citizens make of it.

Gallatin needs a few good citizens with initiative and follow-through on whatever goals and plans develop. Anyone interested is encouraged to talk with city administrator Jason Helton. It’s not just that your voice will be heard, but that your voice joining with others might lead to something really good for our community.