Accessing Healthy Lifestyles

Published: 2019
By Hillary Maxwell

MSU Extension has been sustaining classes in cooking, sewing, gardening, and other healthy lifestyle themes for the past year. With increased interest and participation from community members, the ownership of resources and direction continue to gather momentum. With the opening of the Red Paint Creek Store and Trading Post last year, the variety of healthy options in this rural community has increased access for overall wellness. Classes in the kitchen, within the Red Paint Creek Store and Trading Post, are well-attended as community members learn how to cook and create healthy dishes with healthier alternatives from the produce that is grown within the community garden. A partnership with NADC/Healthy Communities has provided two vertical grow towers which are still producing vegetables in both the Red Paint Creek Store and Trading Post and the public elementary school. Within the public schools, MSU Extension outreach has created new avenues for the students to have a mindful bite and open perspectives to try new vegetables and fruits. Also, through this outreach, there are new opportunities for the students to learn more about healthy lifestyles by growing their own fruits and vegetables. Two new initiatives for accessing community wellness have been implemented through MSU Extension's Opioid Abuse Prevention and Kinship Caregivers Group. These initiatives are responsive to the Fort Belknap Community’s increasing interest in resolving substance abuse and extended family challenges. Through ongoing healthy lifestyle programming, there is a continuation of wellness initiatives that are being utilized and sustained by the Fort Belknap Community and its members.