Leaders Improve Quality of Life Through Powerful Partnerships
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Whether it’s restoring the area’s natural resources‚ educating kids‚ ensuring avail ability of medical services or encouraging residents to lead healthy lifestyles‚ Martinsville’s civic and business leaders are all focused on making their town a better place to live.
For example‚ Dr. David Jones‚ an orthodontist‚ has donated thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours to the Trout in the Classroom program. An avid member of Trout Unlimited‚ Jones says the program was a natural for him.
“I was at a meeting two years ago‚ and the program was being talked about‚” Jones recalls. “Our state chair told me it was all about conservation‚ education‚ kids‚ fly fishing‚ rivers and trout‚ so I said I wanted to try it.”
Through the program‚ participating elementary school classes each receive a 55-gallon aquarium and the necessary equipment to run it. The classroom tanks are stocked with trout eggs or newly hatched fish‚ which are then raised to the fingerling stage and released‚ in this case into the Smith River. From the outset‚ interest in the program was high.
“We did about 16 the first year‚ and were up to 28 class rooms this year [2006-07]‚” Jones says. “We’ve got a waiting list of probably 10 more schools‚ and new ones are showing up all the time.”
With the cost of each tank about $1‚000‚ the program represents a substantial investment for Jones‚ but he credits his staff and patients for making the effort a success.
“My staff has worked on this with me‚ and our patients have been the runners‚” he says. “If we get a call that something’s gone out on a tank‚ I can usually find a student at that school or one nearby who’s coming into the office‚ and they run the part out there. It’s been a great supply system.”
The strong cooperative spirit and community pride is also evident in the Healthy Community Initiative‚ an outreach of the Martinsville-Henry County Coalition for Health and Wellness. Since it began as a one-year‚ grant-funded project in 2004‚ Healthy Community has grown and expanded in just about every direction‚ says Diane Ramey‚ program director.
“Our mission is to reduce health-risk behaviors and to promote health and wellness for kids‚ families and the whole community‚” Ramey says. “We have a free aerobics class four nights a week‚ with about 25 participants a night‚ where we do height‚ weight and blood pressure checks over the 12-week cycle of the class. We’ve seen some great results from that.”
Program administrators also worked with area schools on the Walk to Jamestown initiative‚ a 10-week walking program where all the participants got pedometers and kept track of their steps. It featured a Web site with recipes‚ health tips and facts about Jamestown‚ and was tied into the 400th anniversary of that historic community’s founding. And then there’s Rails to Trails‚ which partners with the coalition and other groups to promote the benefits of walking.
“A lot of organizations here are working on quality of life issues‚ and so we’re working with the schools and a lot of other people‚” Ramey says.
Another initiative that brings education together with addressing public health needs is the city’s new dental clinic‚ which gives fourth-year dental students from Virginia Commonwealth University applied training through their provision of dental services to low-income individuals.
“We saw that indigent care was getting to be an acute problem‚ because so many people had lost or didn’t have insurance‚” says local dentist Dr. Mark Crabtree‚ president of the Piedmont Virginia Dental Health Foundation. “So we worked with the Virginia Dental Association and our congress man to get some funding to create a safety-net type of center.”
The clinic began seeing patients in September 2006 and has four dental students on average working in and living above the facility in rotation‚ as well as dental assistants and a dentist on-site to assist the students. The clinic also has entered a partnership with Danville Community College’s dental hygiene program to offer training for those students as well.
“Everybody’s got something going on‚ and it’s all connected‚ so we’re trying to partner as much as we can so we can do more to serve the city and county‚” Ramey says.
Story by Joe Morris
Photo by Staff
