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Ambra Byrant, Robert Aguilar, and Marissa Waddell have been tireless champions engaging staff and students in health and wellness programs within the College Place School District. The leadership of Superintendent Jim Fry and the College Place Public Schools School Board has enabled them to prioritize well-being both for students as well as the adults in each location.

Principal Robert Aguilar, has been exceedingly open to the Blue Zones Project pillars of: Eating Wisely, Moving Naturally, Connection, and Right Outlook. Coming out of COVID-19, he and his staff recognized that a culture shift was needed around mental health and well-being. They began encouraging students and staff to take care of their personal wellness and they changed some policies to help make healthy choices easier. For example, student clubs were encouraged to either not fundraise using unhealthy food or, if they did include food, to include a physical activity to the fundraiser. The LGBTQ student group decided to fundraise using a photo booth instead of baked goods.

Aguilar also saw a big increase in the use of their salad bar after the pandemic. They made a concerted effort to have an appealing selection of fruits and vegetables from local farms. The food service at the high school also makes most of their food from scratch. One of the teachers said, “I am seeing a direct correlation between students that are now consuming more fresh fruit and vegetables than last year, and a higher level of critical thinking in my classes. This is exciting!”

Because of all the healthy changes the high school has incorporated into their culture, with Aguilar leading the charge, they have become a Blue Zones Project Approved School.

Ambra Bryant, Assistant Principal for College Place High School (CPHS), took her first Blue Zones Project Purpose Workshop during the summer of 2022 at a class offered to teachers and staff as a professional development opportunity. The past school year had been extremely taxing, and Bryant said she was feeling a bit “unenthusiastic” about her profession and her overall purpose.

Participating in the Purpose Workshop helped Bryant remember why she initially became an educator and helped reignite her passion for her work. The experience was so meaningful to her, she became a champion for Purpose Workshops within the school district and has become a certified Purpose Workshop Facilitator. Now, she is presenting workshops for her colleagues and students to help them find their purpose too.

Marissa Waddell is the Director of Human Resources, Teaching and Learning, and Title IX Officer for the College Place School District. College Place Public Schools (CPPS) employs 200 full-time employees and dozens of part-time and temporary employees. “Our culture is the heart of our school system. It makes College Place Public Schools a special place to learn and work, and it gives us a unique advantage,” she says. Building and sustaining the College Place culture requires intentional effort from everyone in the district.

The “CPPS Way” is part of that effort. “Our core beliefs provide the standards for how we behave toward each other, our students, and our community. Because culture shapes behaviors we choose, it determines how effectively we execute our mission.”

Waddell continues to pursue a healthy culture for CPPS and implements wellness practices for the staff and implements healthy programs in which everyone can participate.

Due to the efforts made by the district, College Place Public Schools was accepted into the Multi-tiered System of Supports cohort focusing on staff well-being. This program is offered by Kaiser Permanente, Healthier Generation, and the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction for the 2023-2024 school year. Participants are led through a series of learning activities to prepare them to implement key elements of workplace well-being.

They will develop an action plan to improve staff well-being, district level compliance for SHB 1263: Addressing Secondary Traumatic Stress in the K-12 Workforce, develop a district workforce well-being team, and increase the capacity of well-being evidence-based best practices. Waddell said, “We would not have been a viable applicant for this opportunity had we not worked with Blue Zones Project to establish a foundation for our well-being program.”

The Washington State University (WSU) Extension SNAP Ed and Walla Walla Valley Farm to School programs have been remarkable partners for Blue Zones Project (BZP) to work with.

Farm to School has supported many food policy priorities as well as supported school garden efforts which help students learn about healthy fruits and vegetables in the lunchroom and classroom. Moreover, Farm to School has brought more awareness to our children and their families about locally grown and seasonal produce.

Because of the Walla Walla Valley Farm to School team, students across our valley have access to garden education as part of their overall curriculum. By increasing access to gardening opportunities and knowledge, Farm to School helps our entire community live healthier lives with a stronger connection to our food and the earth.

SNAP Ed also provides nutritional education in partnership with Blue Mountain Action Council (BMAC).  Information about healthy eating and nutrition, as well as healthy food samples, are given out at BMAC food bank distributions around the county. Currently, they are prioritizing healthy food education within the Valle Lindo community and for the valley’s senior populations.

Other work in the Walla Walla Valley was an assessment of available drinking water and water bottle filling stations in public recreation spaces. The BZP Food Policy Committee members lead the assessment and determined there was a need for at least 38 additional water bottle filling stations in parks and playgrounds throughout College Place and Walla Walla.

BZP partnered with SNAP Ed to apply for several grants for water bottle filling stations and have received a few and are waiting to hear back from others. In addition, a community fundraising campaign was also launched seeking community and local business donations to sponsor a station.

Because of SNAP Ed and Farm to School, the Walla Walla Valley has more access to healthy food and water for all community members.

Volunteering regularly can add 7 to 14 good years to a person’s life. It can also improve mental and physical health and increase community connections and investment. Volunteering benefits everyone!

In 2019, the Walla Walla Valley experienced destructive flooding and needed numerous volunteers to help sandbag to mitigate the water damage to the community. David Lopez, Director of the Center for Humanitarian Engagement (CHE) at Walla Walla University connected with the Director of the United Way of the Blue Mountains, Christy Lieuallen, and they were able to assemble students and community members to do the work. This was the beginning of the Blue Mountain Volunteer Corps (BMVC).

After the floods, came the COVID-19 Pandemic and BMVC had hundreds more volunteers join to help with the vaccination clinics. Now, BMVC had over a thousand volunteers who were ready to be mobilized for both large and small volunteer projects in the valley.

Before BMVC was assembled, the United Way received funding for the GetConnected volunteer platform located on their website. This platform enables potential volunteers to sign up and find a volunteer opportunity in the community. It also allows local non-profits and civic organizations to create their own pages on the site and list their volunteer opportunities in one central location that is easy for anyone to find.

Lopez and Lieuallen decided to combine the volunteers from BMVC with the GetConnected platform to create a central location where volunteers and local organizations can find each other for volunteer projects. The partnership was made, and the work continued.

Blue Zones Project met with Lieuallen and Lopez to help promote volunteerism in the community. They assembled the BMVC committee including Director for Community Engagement at Whitman College, Abby Juhasz; community advocate, Nadine Stecklein; Engagement Coordinator for the United Way, Cheyenne Smith; Volunteer Coordinator for BMAC Food Bank, Yvonne Segovia; Walla Walla Community College Food Bank Coordinator, Becca Tibbetts; Asst. Director of the Water & Environmental Center, Drew Trogstad-Isaacson, and student leaders from both Whitman and WWU.

The committee’s goal is to continue to streamline volunteerism in the community to make it easily accessible to everyone. In the spring of 2023, the committee organized a volunteer fair with over 40 non-profits and civic organizations present. The fair attracted over 200 attendees. The event also helped local organizations see the value of adding their volunteer opportunities to the BMVC website so volunteers can find them 365 days a year.

The three local colleges have an annual event called Tri-College Volunteer Day where students from each school go out into the community for a day to perform several volunteer activities. The BMVC committee combined efforts with the schools and added community members to the event to volunteer with the students. The event is now called the Tri-College Community Day and 300 students and locals volunteered together last year at over 20 sites.

The BMVC committee has also hosted two luncheons for local volunteer coordinators to connect with each other and to support the work they do. These efforts are poised to continue and to become more formalized in the months to come. The hope is more volunteer coordinators will join the committee and continue to support the streamlining of volunteerism in the community. It will benefit all of us.

The Rehabilitation Outpatient Clinical Services team at Southgate Providence see a need for preventative and ongoing care for their patients. They are passionate about the health and wellness of their patients and the community. They see their building as a future health and wellness hub of the Walla Walla Valley, full of wellness programs and projects.

Manager and Physical Therapist, Brian Duke, heard about Blue Zones Project and reached out to see if a partnership was possible. Brian met with BZP Engagement Lead, Rebecca Thorpe, and discussed several possibilities of partnership and they produced an initial plan to start an indoor walk and roll group. Duke pulled in Lead Physical Therapist, C.J. Zita, and Clinical Care Coordinator, Darcey Benzel, to get started. The team created a walking and rolling loop within the main building that was safe for people to use whether they are walking, using a walker, in a wheelchair, or using another aid for movement. They created a fun atmosphere every week during the fall and winter of 2022-23 where folks could move naturally and safely in the building. A lot of people also met new friends and became walking partners.

The walking loop is free and open to patients and community members alike and is immensely popular! So popular, that Southgate Providence decided to take over the walking group this winter and make it a permanent program in their building. Thanks to Southgate’s initiative and care for others, community members have a safe indoor space to walk and roll on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons / evenings.

In the future, the Southgate team has plans to start hosting healthy cooking classes, free exercise classes, and wellness classes. Thank you, Brian, Darcey, C.J., and extended team – Because of You, our community is more active!

Blue Zones Project (BZP) has been extraordinarily fortunate to have met and worked with many passionate chefs in our community! These volunteers have shared their time, talent, and passion for healthy cooking with nearly 700 community members and counting.

The three chefs we are featuring are: Heidi McFarely, Jon Sodini, and Gary Asmus. They have gone above and beyond and have presented classes at The Senior Center, Providence Southgate, Wheatland Village, the WW Public Library, Whitman College, SonBridge Center for Healthy Living, and more! They have prepared everything from tofu to kale and taught us how to make these healthy items taste delicious!

McFarely has her own business, Red Reina, where she shares her gift of cooking by making it fun and affordable. She opened a restaurant in Walla Walla in 2011 making lunches six days a week and catering countless events. She eventually closed the restaurant to focus on catering. In 2018 she took her passion for food in a new direction and became the Food Program Director at a charter school for 6 – 8 graders. She sourced food from local producers and the students helped in the kitchen and took cooking classes.

When BZP combined our cooking classes with the Produce RX pilot with Providence St. Mary’s (a program where doctors prescribed eating vegetables to patients with chronic health disease) the cooking classes took off. The patients from Produce RX started coming to BZP cooking classes to learn how to cook the vegetables they were prescribed. Word spread about how amazing McFarley’s monthly classes were and went from 10 participants to sometimes 60. Her love and knowledge of healthy food was infectious and reignited her passion for teaching cooking. The classes have rekindled her business and she is teaching more and more healthy cooking classes with Blue Zones Project and other organizations. Currently, BZP is working on connecting her with Providence St. Mary’s Southgate team to continue her monthly classes that have been so popular.

Jon Sodini was the Culinary Director at Bon Appetit for Whitman College but recently moved to California with his family to pursue more culinary crusades. He helped revolutionize eating for the students and staff at Whitman by putting plant-based options first on the menu and sourcing as much produce and meat as he could from local farms. The dining hall, called Cleveland Commons Café, is also open to the public and is the most affordable plant-forward restaurant in the valley. He worked with BZP to have Cleveland Commons become a Blue Zones Project Approved Restaurant. But the team learned so much more from Sodini than we could share with him.

He honed his cooking skills and earned his Associates Degree in Culinary Arts from the Western Culinary Institute in Portland, OR and participated in an intensive program at Le Cordon Bleu in France.

Sodini charmed participants at his cooking classes at Whitman and at College Place Farmers Markets taking produce right from the stands at the market and making delicious dishes. He will be missed in the valley, but his legacy continues at the café.

Gary Asmus is a semi-retired chef who continues to be a personal chef and caterer when it doesn’t interfere with his new passion of woodworking. A graduate from the California Culinary Academy, Asmus worked everywhere from being the Executive Chef at Evergreen Hospital to being a chef for the famous Wolfgang Puck. Asmus’ passion for cooking is infectious and he teaches so many tricks of the trade including how to efficiently cut a pepper, what knives are best to use, and how to grill tofu to please any barbecue fan.

Asmus generously donated his time for some Produce RX classes, farmers markets, and at the WW Public Library. He is known for big cooking, so everyone gets more than just a sample at his classes! He also serves on the board for the Blue Mountain Humane Society and cooks homemade meals for his well-loved dogs at home. If only we all could be his pet!

The Senior Center has been a fantastic partner with Blue Zones Project (BZP). BZP began talking with Director, Brian Berry, early in the project. However, programming for seniors was limited during the early stages of the pandemic.

As soon as it was safe, BZP Public Policy Advocate, Emily Brown, connected with Berry to start a community garden at the center and Engagement Lead, Rebecca Thorpe, spoke to board members about Blue Zones Project activities and principles.  

Alex Sanchez, Adult Day Center (ADC) Program Manager at the Senior Center became very involved in helping make the Senior Center Garden a success. He supported the ADC members as they volunteered to create and maintain the garden. This past summer, the herbs and vegetables from the garden were used as ingredients in meals served by the Senior Center. Alex’s passion for helping older adults be active, participate in activities that stimulate their memories, and consume healthy fruits and vegetables is shown clearly through his dedication to his ADC members and their well-being. 

Meanwhile, Berry was busy working with his Senior Center board, staff, and members to become a Blue Zones Project Approved Organization which included offering healthy cooking classes and Purpose Workshops. Berry also connected with the City of Walla Walla’s Angela Potts to provide healthy programs for seniors including M.E.L.T., Qi Gong, and even Laughter Yoga classes. In addition, they have partnered with BZP for our Address the Stress campaign and continue to provide opportunities for members to learn about how to finish their stress cycles to alleviate chronic stress. Finally, a Walking Moai was launched and was a great success getting people moving and socializing. They will continue the program each spring when the weather is better. They are also ambitiously working on creating more activities for seniors and their staff for the future. 

Berry is a visionary, and he sees the writing on the wall. He knows the next generation of elders are more active and health-minded and wants to get ahead and begin providing meaningful activities for those who are present now and for those to come. Partnering with BZP gave him the bandwidth and support he needed to begin planning and programming these kinds of activities.