2009 Health Promotion Award Winners

“Opening Doors for the Homeless” (DOORS)

PLACES, Inc, Samaritan Homeless Clinic, Center for Alcohol & Drug Abuse Services, The Other Place,
EastCo, Salvation Army, Booth House

Partners:  PLACES, Inc., Samaritan Homeless Clinic, Center for Alcohol and Drug Abuse Services, The Other Place, Eastco, Salvation Army Booth House
The DOORS program was organized in 1997 by a group of providers whose services are essential to the homeless.  Their goal was to increase access to supportive services for homeless individuals in Montgomery County.  Since then, this longstanding collaborative has quietly and faithfully provided a significant stabilizing force to build a healthier community.  Over time the collaborative has refined its service delivery model.  At present, they target the “hard to serve” homeless with more intensive services to provide them with the tools they need to obtain and retain permanent housing and increase their income. 
DOORS maintains a pool of resources to remove typical housing barriers, such as the lack of money to pay rent deposits, retire old utility bills, purchase basic furnishings, etc.  In addition to funding needed services, DOORS clients benefit from two or more of the partners working together to serve multiple needs which would be beyond an individual agency’s scope of service. 
The collaborative served 106 individuals in calendar year 2008 and have 281 active clients as of March 31, 2009.  In these especially difficult times, DOORS provides a positive avenue for homeless individuals to healthier, more productive and stable lives.

Partners: Shumsky, Inc., CompuNet Clinical Laboratories, McGohan Brabender, United HealthCare, and Monica Cengia, licensed dietician and lifestyle educator
This team of businesses came together when individual group members, working on wellness related projects within their respective organizations, realized there was a need for additional wellness resources in the Dayton community.  Working together and pooling their expertise, experiences, and community contacts, the collaborative developed a program to assist businesses to create a culture of wellness for their employee population and ultimately, the community as a whole.  The program is designed to look at all the steps necessary to implement a wellness program in a business or organization, imparting a vast amount of information in a succinct format, to be presented as an hour seminar or half-day workshop. 

2008 Health Promotion Award Winners

Diabetes and Obesity Wellness Opportunities Program (DO-WOP)

Partners: Cassano Health Center, the Grandview Foundation, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company 2, West YMCA, and others
The Cassano Health Center initiated DO-WOP in January 2007 in response to the childhood obesity epidemic.  The program provides a fun and safe environment for children to experience physical activity and learn healthy eating.  Participants in the program are youth aged 9-14 who meet weekly after school for one hour of nutrition education with a certified dietician and another hour of aerobic exercise consisting of dance instruction.  Adult caregivers participate in DOWOP to learn healthy eating at home and support their children in developing new habits. The program has demonstrated outcomes of increased health and fitness among enrollees.
A critical component of the free program has been the collaboration of DCDC2, whose holistic approach to fitness engages and encourages children to care for their bodies while at the same time providing culturally diverse, positive role models for enrollees.