Since receiving the mini grant, I have been looking for other ways to encourage ladies to work on their well-being outside of just working out. So I have started to incorporate Fit Mom Tips of the Week, as well as healthy meal options, and then just advice on how to care for yourself as a woman with self-esteem, with confidence, being able to accept where you are now and how you can make yourself better, not just for you, but for your family as a whole, and just helping women to work on themselves as a whole package.
Mini Grant Role: I received a mini grant for an idea I had
Mini Grant SenseMaker Project Story or Micro-Narrative
How This Person Interpreted Their Story or Micro-Narrative
Note: Responses which fell closer to the middle (between two or three options) are shown as two dashes.
We have completed three courses…
We have completed three courses so far for our future leaders primarily for high schoolers in PBC. So far the theme has been on leadership development in which the courses focused on discovering your purpose, goal setting through vision boards, and tonight on public speaking. Every class has a keynote speaker who is a subject matter expert and each one so far as imparted seeds of knowledge, discovery and engagement. In many of the surveys so far, the youth have expressed that they never really thought about their purpose or that they didn’t know that every person on this planet was born with a purpose. A few of the youth shared their vision boards with me which is such a blessing. It shows how many goals some have and others are going through a discovery process of asking themselves about their goals–perhaps something they never really thought about let alone putting thoughts on virtual paper/canva LOL. Tonight, we had about 25 participants and ten of the youth participated in “table topics,” an opportunity to practice impromptu speaking on a host of topics that were age appropriate. One of the girls said that she never would have thought that she would share in a group setting and she wasn’t sure “how we did it.” What she was really saying was how did she get the courage to talk in front of people, even if by Zoom. These may seem like small wins but they’re huge to me. The next session will be on microaggressions and racial equity awareness. In March and April, the focus will be on financial awareness and in May and June, we will shift the focus to job preparedness. I may shift and provide courses outside this curriculum by partnering with another agency to discuss college preparedness. I love that I can be nimble and adjust to the needs of the students without heavy bureaucracy and red tape. Thank you BeWell PBC! I believe the impact to the youth is great and I can’t wait to see how their lives will be impacted by the time the Future Leaders graduation comes around in July.
Oh my ! The grant process was…
Oh my ! The grant process was a frantic one in Q4 2020. I reached out to a number of contacts and felt that some traction was being made…Then nothing. Year-end kicked in. So did the challenges of Covid. I felt everything grinding to a halt. The initial meetings and potential connections’ interest appeared to disappear. Things seemed to fizzle out…The beginning of 2021 was also terribly slow. It seems that Self Compassion Matters was not a priority, decision makers had not responded. I have to admit that frustration began to creep in. I am aware that Q1 is the best time of the year in terms of weather and being outside…Anyhow, some Self Compassion was needed. I am glad that I reached out to the bewellpbc team, I feel supported and my efforts are appreciated!
Hello my name is…
Hello my name is Verna Neely, I’m the founder of the Ladybugs of The Palm Beaches and the creator of the Ladybugs Art Box. I was given my first art kit when I was a little girl. It helped me to easy my mind during my many medical issues. I am a self taught artist . I have a degree in arts. When I find myself depressed, stressed or just angry. I pick up my art supplies. Art helps me to calm down . When I’m done I have some of the most beautiful pieces. Working with healthier Neighbors and being a recipient of the mini grant has allowed me to share Ladybugs Art Box with over 200 people. Our goal was to reach 150 people. Since start this project I have lost 5 family members to some kind of trauma or violence. I just lost a sister to gun violence. She was murdered on December 20, 2020. Thanks to art and passing out these art boxes having given me an outlet to pour my anger and sorrows into. In the near future I hope to own an art gallery right here in Riviera Beach, and just maybe some of the 200 people that received an art box will have art to put in the gallery. Thank you Healthier Neighbors.
While personally experiencing the disconnect…
While personally experiencing the disconnect from family, friends, community and church, I often thought about our Seniors and what they might be going through due to the COVID-19 Pandemic and Social Distancing. In discussing this with others and realizing some Seniors are further restricted by vision, hearing and mobility impairments we felt the need was urgent. So we sought to find a solution to this issue and to help our most precious citizens cope during this time to avoid isolation and loneliness thereby avoiding negative effects on their mental and social wellbeing. As we investigated possible solutions, we discovered voice activated technical devices suitable for Seniors. Our next challenge was funding these devices. Thankfully, the Be Well Palm Beach County Mini Grant opportunity was introduced to us. We applied and were awarded the Grant. As of today, we have helped 16 Seniors CONNECT again!
So far, we have hosted…
So far, we have hosted three meetings with key stakeholders in the hospital / medical fields. There is interest in the Self Compassion mini grant. With Covid numbers, the one day retreats will be pushed to Q one 2021. The story is unfolding.
A Story of Success
Women Helping WomenA Story of SuccessLake Worth West Resident Planning Group, Inc. has been able to provide educational workshops to the community for many years. We have been blessed to have great community partners who facilitate capacity building workshops about a variety of topics to educate the Lake Worth West families and raise awareness regarding physical and mental health, nutrition, safety, and child development, among others.In 2016, the Lake Worth West staff realized the need to offer a safe space for the Lake Worth West women to share with other women their own experiences, challenges, and successes as mothers and wives in the community. The women wanted to create a net of support. That is how the Womens Club began. Before the pandemic, we were able to do sessions in our building, go out to parks for walks and picnics, to museums, botanical gardens, restaurants, and other places. Through this program women have been able to visit places they have never been before, or will never be able to afford, that serve to reduce lifes stressors. Despite the pandemic, 2020 has brought us many blessings, including the Be Well Do Well grant for LWWs Womens Club/Women Helping Women behavioral health and wellness initiative. With the funding we were granted, the participants have been able to participate in new weekly wellness and stress reduction activities like Zumba and Yoga classes. The group also added a weekly cooking class named Lets Get Cooking. The facilitator of this amazing class is a professional nutritionist who comes up with healthy and easy recipes to teach to Women Helping Women participants about eating for good emotional and physical health. In a recent session of the Women Helping Women program, some participants expressed their gratitude and appreciation for all the activities offered. Some of their comments were: The zumba class has helped me and my daughter to relief some stress in these times of craziness. The Yoga class is my time to relax after a busy day at work. The yoga class has taught different ways to breathe to calm myself down when I am anxious and stressed out. I have learned how to cook healthy recipes for me and my family.Thank you for that excellent cooking class, my family and I enjoyed this delicious and healthy recipe.Our most recent accomplishment happened during the November Women Helping Women session when two of the moms took the lead of the class, showed a well-prepared Power Point ant talked to 18 more participants about womens empowerment and beauty stereotypes. They facilitated a great session, allowed other women to share their experiences and opinions and encouraged everyone to love and appreciate themselves the way they are. They reminded everybody how important and valuable they are and the importance of believing in themselves to be able to reach their goals and dreams. After seeing these women leading that class, we, as organization, felt proud of them and their accomplishments. We confirmed that this program has touched the lives of women for good and that we want to keep women empowering more women to become self-sufficient and great community leaders. With the Be Well grant, we have been able to incentivize womens participation and motivate their leadership skills through gift cards and kitchen utensils helpful to preparing the recipes learned in the cooking class. Thank you very much to Be Well Do Well for your support!
Behave Healthy Riviera Beach will…
Behave Healthy Riviera Beach will focus on teaching school aged children the benefits of healthy eating and making healthy decisions. This program is an community initiative created by Smoothie Me Please, a local smoothie bar in Riviera Beach. Students will be able to virtually attend live workshops and cooking classes. The classes will explore how to wash and prep/cut fruits and vegetables. The students will be empowered to make their own smoothie meal prep kits for themselves and the family.
A Natural Approach to Wellness…One Bath At A Time
Hello, my name is Danielle Morris and I am the founder of Glowrious Bath & Body which is an all natural company specializing in whipped butters, hand-crafted soaps, scrubs, salves and other bath and body essentials. And ultimately, we would love for everyone to have a natural approach to wellness and in our case, one bath at a time. And so my experience with Healthier Neighbors’ mini grant has been phenomenal on a couple of levels. One, I am very grateful for the trainings that were provided, some of the insight, some of the education, because, as a small business owner, that helped me to refine my decision as to how things were going to be allocated. And with that, with my funds through the mini grant, helped me to, again, reallocate my finances, but also to reallocate my focus on how I can better serve my community with the funds that I’ve received. And so, again, this has just been a downright pleasant experience. It has been beneficial for me, again, as a small business owner because sometimes you don’t know what direction to take, so with that, I believe that it’s just been great in a sense of fostering community, providing education, providing insight, and then also giving us the means to do so. So, again, I’m very grateful for the mini grant experience. I think it has been relatively smooth. And with that, thank you, thank you, thank you.
As a veteran teacher working with…
As a veteran teacher working with students that have emotional and behavioral challenges, I always wanted to create a program that could impact students by developing healthy habits with skills that can be used throughout their lives to manage stress and maintain healthy bodies. When Covid shut everyone down in the spring, I knew that this needed to happen more than ever – my students were isolated and not engaging as they did in the classroom. I read Activate by Katherine Mills Hernandez this summer and was pleasantly surprised to find that much research has been done showing the positive impact movement has on learning – as a teacher, it’s logical to try something as simple as adding movement to improve student focus and success. Other research shows that exercise is beneficial for mental health as well. There was no way that I wasn’t going to add movement to my lessons and conduct my own “research.” How to convince the students became my challenge.THEN, I stumbled upon an email from Palm Beach Health about the Be Well PBC Mini-Grant! After the Mini-Grant Workshop, I felt confident enough to apply for my first grant, keeping my students in mind. The program idea involves students getting fit, creating obstacle courses at home, designing an obstacle course for school, and finally creating the course on-site so that students can compete for personal goals and bragging rights. At the end of July I was surprised to learn that $3,000 had been awarded for the idea! I was thrilled and wanted to order the fitness equipment for everyone to start getting stronger a.s.a.p., and was disappointed that the process was a little time consuming with the School District, BUT that turned out to be beneficial.Instead of students having the exercise gear for the first day of school, they got to design a logo for the materials and choose the items for purchase after a lesson on budgeting! While we waited for the items to arrive, we worked out for a few minutes every day in class, exploring different websites and videos. Student engagement grew as their skills improved!When the items arrived, they were eager to take them home and start using them. They are required to log 30 minutes of activity every day. I hold a virtual workout session three times per week! Almost every day someone tells me a story about something they are able to do now that they couldn’t a few months ago. Now that most have “bought into” fitness, we are going to start the fun part of designing the obstacle courses at home over the winter break, and then on campus in January and February.The process is taking longer than I envisioned, but the results so far are greater than I dreamed! This would not be possible without the BeWellPBC Mini-Grant!