Some rural counties in Tennessee have only a few grocery stores selling healthy foods and places where people can exercise. University of Tennessee Extension is working to improve access to foods and exercise opportunities in a program that includes some ambitious changes for a community. On this session of AgCast, more on future goals for better health and the H2O program. Hello, I'm Charles Denny.
This is AgCast, brought to you by the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture. For Ramona Spencer, pavement is her pathway to better health. Since she started a walking routine, she has better control of her weight, cholesterol, and type 2 diabetes. Since I started walking and exercising and eating right and doing the right thing, how my life has changed and how I have become more healthy.
So that's really how I got into it. You know, I didn't start out wanting to get into it, but I did get into it, and I'm loving it. I'm loving living a healthier life and just being more active. Ramona makes her home in Middleton and is an inspirational success story in H2O that stands for Hardeman Healthy Outreach.
It's a UT Extension program to improve access to fitness opportunities and healthier foods for people in the southwest Tennessee county, where, sadly, obesity rates for many people are dangerously high. Amy Eliezer with UT Extension helps coordinate H2O. With Hardeman Healthy Outreach, it's a five-year CDC program, high obesity program, that came to Hardeman County because 40% or more of adults are overweight or obese. With obesity, a lot of chronic disease comes along with that.
And our work here is to help people have easier access to healthier foods and to physical activity opportunities so that they can try to implement some of the healthy things that Extension teaches people about doing and to work with them to have a healthier lifestyle. A healthy lifestyle means everything. It can help a community recruit new employment, all sorts of opportunities for their citizens, and so that's a part of what we're doing here. The thing that people have to remember is we can talk all day long in Extension.
We educate on how to have a healthful life, how to eat healthfully, but if people don't have the access to the healthy foods and those active opportunities, they can't implement what we're encouraging people to do. Our project is not to take away things that people enjoy, but to help put options there. H2O also includes diabetes education and health care providers encouraging people here to take care of their health. Carrie McKee is a nurse and diabetes educator in Hardeman County.
Well, I kind of have a double role, you know, in the community. Our church is in an area that does not have a grocery store and does have a need for, you know, insecurity with foods. And also, I'm a diabetes educator and are in at the Hardeman County Community Health Center, and so it's a big goal of ours right now to lower A1Cs, have people come in every three months for those diabetes checks, teach them about foods, you know, filling their plate with healthy foods. That's correct.
You know, living in a small rural area, a lot of towns in our community do not even have grocery stores or access to foods. A lot of people are uninsured right now, so both of those barriers really play a big role in diabetes patients being able to get the foods that they need that are healthy, plus they're a little more costly to buy healthy foods, and so those are things that do cause barriers for people that we see. Hardeman may be small in population, 25,000 or so, but it's big in landmass, Tennessee's fifth largest county in area. Several towns here, but they're spread apart, and some people are a good 25 miles from their nearest grocery store.
H2O is also about healthy food options. As part of the program, local food pantries have been busy, like in the towns of Middleton and Whiteville, often connected to churches and their outreach efforts. And then there's the Farmers to Families Food Box Distribution, where more than 23,000 boxes of food were given out. Stephanie Middleton with UT Extension helped coordinate this effort.
Most people have found that they've gotten in a situation where they have had to ask for help, and a lot of these are first time due to the pandemic. Our USDA Farmers to Families Food Box Distribution has been very successful and led to a lot of other spinoff opportunities for us to build relationships. We've had a group of faithful volunteers who've come together and formed a bond that they continue to help their neighbors to feed their neighbors, and it was a combination box of dairy and meat and produce. So these folks were able to have access to healthier foods.
And this was all successful due to the community coming together. And we're going to see good things happen here in Grand Junction. Just down the road a piece, folks will soon be able to exercise by shooting hoops or playing pickleball. Another project that's part of H2O, an old tennis court will be covered in new asphalt soon, creating a basketball court in the Grand Junction City Park.
Alderman Vince McCaleb says it will be a blessing for the community. And I found out with the basketball courts that when we had work day two weeks ago, we had work day and they finished cleaning the court off, getting it ready to be repaved. The workers afterwards, when we finished that day, they were all excited and all had their plans of how their grandsons, how their sons, they've been looking for something like this and that this is going to be wonderful. It's the beginning of something.
And us having this court to start with, of course, we were looking at different avenues, but this right here is going to be a good start and it's going to be top notch. Donna Lane is with friends of the Grand Junction City Park and is excited to see this finally take shape. Talking to the younger people, it was like, why can't we turn it into a basketball court? Why can't we use it for a basketball court?
And there was one thing or the other, red tape to get through, financially trying to do it. It just wasn't feasible. But we, like I said, it's at least been 15 years that we have tried to get to this point. And now it happens.
Exactly. I mean, it's been a long time coming. It's been a labor of love because the people were asking for something for our kids. Local churches and charitable foundations are also contributors to H2O and involved in the new basketball court.
Eddie Moore and his family and his construction company are all in here. In every community that we do business in, we tend to find projects that are meaningful to our foundation, what we believe in. It is something that I think will be utilized quite tremendously. It gives the youth in the area something to do, something more constructive.
Troy Steyer's Grand Junction Church had many members volunteer to clear away debris and the old fencing around the old tennis court, making way for this new project. We hope it's the first of many things that will provide the opportunity for not only kids to get out and enjoy, but also for adults for many, many years to come. And so we focused on the basketball court first because we thought that was the right thing and we were able to have a donor come in who's been instrumental in really pushing this project forward. And so we kind of put the sweat equity, as he called it, in and removed the fencing and we've had some other church groups that have done some other stuff to get it ready.
And I'm looking for that day when we cut the court and are able to present the city a brand new resurfaced and refurbished basketball court to take the crowd of. And I think it's the beginning. It's the momentum builder for some of the things we want to see in the park later on. And I think it'll help our park people take ownership of those kind of things.
So we're excited about it. More nutritious foods and a chance to burn calories. If access to both can be improved through the H2O program, the result could be a much healthier population here in Hardeman County. Something to build on, opportunities created.
Thanks for listening. I'm Charles Denny.