Rising Stars!

It has been a gorgeous spring week around here and the perfect weather for touring some of the finest health and wellness spots in the area, including Takoma's Creation Health Nature Trail, the Laughlin Walking Trail and Rural Resources. 

The Tennessee Department of Health's Rising Stars committee came into town, along with some business men and women from New York, to hear about the innovative things being done here in Greene County to promote health and wellness, not just through Creation Health but through our health department and health council, both of our hospitals, as well as Rural Resources.

It was a joy to spend the better part of a day with them, beginning with a round table discussion, followed by the tours and then ending with a picnic lunch. I am proud to report that this is (at least) the second time in the past year that groups of people have come here to study Greene County's health and wellness emphasis, so that they can use us as a model community on a national level.

It was another shifting gears kind of day, as I left there and headed to Tusculum View to lead the Tiger Times after school program as I have been doing twice a month all semester. Since it was my 2nd visit of the month, we talked about the last 4 letters in the CREATION acronym, T-I-O-N and then went outside to enjoy the beautiful fresh air and sunshine while getting in some activity time on the playground.

Unfortunately this was my final visit of the school year, because school is out next month. Crazy! I do look forward to the upcoming summer months though, since I get to spend most of my days working with kiddos. Last summer alone, I worked with 350+ kids through the YMCA, the Boys & Girls Club and the GCS summer program. I take my boys with me and we have a blast doing fun activities while learning about health and wellness!

Earlier this week, I was fortunate to be apart of the local March for Babies walk, where I set-up a booth of CH materials and talked with those interested in the program. It was another full week for Creation Health - Greene County!

Happy Weekend, friends!

About the Author: Erin Franklin is the Creation Health Coordinator for Greene County, the Head Volleyball Coach at Greeneville High School and the Founder/Director at Worthy of the Prize Sports Ministries. Erin has a BBA in Marketing and Management from TCU and a Masters of Christian Education in Church Recreation from Southwestern Seminary. She is a published, award-winning author and poet. Purchase her book Worthy of the Prize Sports Camps: A Church's Guide to Implementing an Effective, Community-Reaching Christian Sports Camp to be used as an outreach tool for your church or mission organization, and her ebook find joy in the journey: how 12 women could face tomorrow just because He lives for inspiring stories of women who found overwhelming joy despite their circumstances. Erin is the wife of Aaron, the Minister of Music & Senior Adults at FBC Greeneville, and the momma of 2 sons, Anderson and EJ. Click here for full bio.

We Did It!

We finished the 8-week Creation Health seminar for the City of Greeneville employees that was being held out at Public Works once a week this spring, which actually ended up lasting for 11 weeks due to snow and sickness cancellations along the way!

In our final session, we discussed N - Nutrition, how it is "the fuel that drives our whole system" and how "we really are what we eat."

Here our attendees are pictured taking a "healthy eating self-test." You can see that we had a great turn out each week, around 35 city employees who earned wellness points by coming, which in turn help keep their health insurance costs down. And all the while, they learn the 8 principle areas that affect our overall health and well-being.

I would say it was a success and I look forward to another round of seminars with more city employees in the fall!

Happy Weekend, friends!

About the Author: Erin Franklin is the Creation Health Coordinator for Greene County, the Head Volleyball Coach at Greeneville High School and the Founder/Director at Worthy of the Prize Sports Ministries. Erin has a BBA in Marketing and Management from TCU and a Masters of Christian Education in Church Recreation from Southwestern Seminary. She is a published, award-winning author and poet. Purchase her book Worthy of the Prize Sports Camps: A Church's Guide to Implementing an Effective, Community-Reaching Christian Sports Camp to be used as an outreach tool for your church or mission organization, and her ebook find joy in the journey: how 12 women could face tomorrow just because He lives for inspiring stories of women who found overwhelming joy despite their circumstances. Erin is the wife of Aaron, the Minister of Music & Senior Adults at FBC Greeneville, and the momma of 2 sons, Anderson and EJ. Click here for full bio.

It's All in How You Look at It

What does the sign shown above say?

When I asked this question in the City of Greeneville O - Outlook Seminar this past week, most people in the room said "Opportunity Is Nowhere."

But a few voices chimed in "Opportunity Is Now Here." It's all in how you look at it, right?

If you are a pessimist, you might see it the first way. If you are an optimist, maybe you see it the second way. I have no idea if this theory holds up statistically, but I do know that there are two ways of looking at it.

So it is with life. You get to choose how you are going to approach life each and every day. If things are not going your way that day, will you throw in the towel and give up, or will you choose to make the best of it? You know, the whole lemons make lemonade idea.

Because our outlook on life impacts the choices we make, this is one way that outlook affects our health. And I must say that we had a great time discussing this very idea (and other scientific evidence that shows how outlook is directly related to our overall health and well-being) in our seminar this week.

Hope you had a great week too!

About the Author: Erin Franklin is the Creation Health Coordinator for Greene County, the Head Volleyball Coach at Greeneville High School and the Founder/Director at Worthy of the Prize Sports Ministries. Erin has a BBA in Marketing and Management from TCU and a Masters of Christian Education in Church Recreation from Southwestern Seminary. She is a published, award-winning author and poet. Purchase her book Worthy of the Prize Sports Camps: A Church's Guide to Implementing an Effective, Community-Reaching Christian Sports Camp to be used as an outreach tool for your church or mission organization, and her ebook find joy in the journey: how 12 women could face tomorrow just because He lives for inspiring stories of women who found overwhelming joy despite their circumstances. Erin is the wife of Aaron, the Minister of Music & Senior Adults at FBC Greeneville, and the momma of 2 sons, Anderson and EJ. Click here for full bio.

Coach in Training

Last week I had my weekly lunch seminar for the City of Greeneville employees, where we talked about I - Interpersonal Relationships and how it is vital to our health and well-being to have a strong support system around us.

I was so excited that one of my awesome coaches showed up to get a taste of what one of the seminars is like because she wants to be trained to lead seminars herself, so that she can help me lead them for patients/employees at Laughlin as well as out in the community. Yay!

I am thrilled to report that this will make the 3rd coach of mine who is trained to teach Creation Health. I already have 2 coaches at Takoma who are trained as well. One regularly teaches CH at the Roby Center and the other at the YMCA. These 3, along with the 5 of us who are on the CH Steering Committee, makes 8 people in our community who are trained CH teachers.

And that makes for another exciting week in the life of Creation Health - Greene County!

About the Author: Erin Franklin is the Creation Health Coordinator for Greene County, the Head Volleyball Coach at Greeneville High School and the Founder/Director at Worthy of the Prize Sports Ministries. Erin has a BBA in Marketing and Management from TCU and a Masters of Christian Education in Church Recreation from Southwestern Seminary. She is a published, award-winning author and poet. Purchase her book Worthy of the Prize Sports Camps: A Church's Guide to Implementing an Effective, Community-Reaching Christian Sports Camp to be used as an outreach tool for your church or mission organization, and her ebook find joy in the journey: how 12 women could face tomorrow just because He lives for inspiring stories of women who found overwhelming joy despite their circumstances. Erin is the wife of Aaron, the Minister of Music & Senior Adults at FBC Greeneville, and the momma of 2 sons, Anderson and EJ. Click here for full bio.