Healthier Tennessee comes to six Chattanooga neighborhoods

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF) — A non-profit organization designed to get people to live a healthier lifestyle is expanding one of its programs to the Scenic City.

Change is coming to six different neighborhoods in Chattanooga, which are Belvoir, Glass Farm, Belleau Woods, Boyce Station, Shepherd and Southside.

The Governor’s Foundation for Health and Wellness is adding to its Healthier Tennessee Communities program.

Janette Richie, a neighborhood leader in Glass Farm, is thankful.

“We need this Healthier Tennessee. Because we’ve got a lot of young people in our neighborhood and we have a lot of elderly people in our neighborhood. We live in a food desert. We need this Healthier Tennessee right now,” Richie said.

The program seeks to increase physical activity, healthy eating, and encourage people not to use tobacco.

“We give them all different choices and they kind of decide what they want. The key after that is how many options are they providing to those neighbors that are thinking about movement, that are thinking about nutrition,” said Russell Cliche, regional director for the Governor’s Foundation for Health and Wellness

Belvoir neighborhood leader John McGirk says this will allow them to build on what they are already doing.

“While we feel we have a lot of active people in our neighborhood, we are probably going to be surprised in how many people aren’t so, but I would say that our active folks are pretty well spread out throughout our neighborhood,” McGirk said.

Others say this will set a good example for children.

“When we start bringing in family values, along with our gardening techniques that we’ve learned in our past culture we are going to do great,” said Barney May, who will oversee the program in the Southside.

With this initiative, neighborhood leaders say they see positive movement in their community.

Cliche says the goal is to eventually spread to more neighborhoods in Chattanooga.