How a P.E.I. village is taking its health into its own hands

A group of people in Morell, P.E.I., is getting together regularly in hopes of improving the health of people living in their own community.

The group was started in September byTyler Read, a physical education teacher and the athletic director atMorellRegional High School.

The idea was to empower community members. Tyler Read

"I thought it might be a good idea to start within a small community, kind of a pilot project or something where we can get students and teachers and community members and see if we can't provide some ways to help the community with just wellness," he said.

Read said when it comes to health and wellness, Morell faces similar challenges to communities across the country.

"Our health care bills are not going down and the cost of health care is not going down, so if we can do things to help ourselves and to prevent as much as we can that's really important," he said.

Empowering community members

The group meets about once a month, he said, and focuses on a number of issues, including supports for seniors, smoking cessation, mental health, nutrition and exercise. The high school's foods class makes healthy food for attendees and Read has also been bringing in speakers to bring their expertise to the group.

"The idea was to have collaboration, try and empower community members and students and kind of provide a healthy atmosphere for learning for all ages," Read said.

Read said one student was so inspired by the talk given by a representative of the Canadian Mental Health Association, that she made posters about different mental illnesses and hosted a lunchtime trivia to pass on some of what she learned to other students.

The first meeting, Read said, was attended by three people himself, a parent and her Grade 9 student but since then, meetings have seen better turnout with the last meeting having about 15 people in attendance. He said the group has been about half high school studentsand half other community members.

"There's been a trend going in the right direction," he said of participation.

Hopes to grow, extend across Island

Read said the committee is still in its very early stages.Eventually, the hope is to formsubgroups, through which people can tackle different projects.

"We have all of these ideas, and as community members I think we all know that there are things that we need to do," he said.

He'd also like to see other communities across the Island form similar groups, and said anyone who is doing something similar or is interested in doing something similar is welcome to come to a Morell Wellness Council meeting.

The next meeting is on May 8 at 6 p.m. at MorellRegional High School. Travis Saunders from UPEI's Department of Kinesiologywill be speaking to the groupabout the impact of sedentary behaviour and too much screen time.

More P.E.I. News