By Sentinel Staff
The Sitka Health Summit Coalition is seeking public comments on how a $25,000 Culture of Health grant should be spent.
Coalition leader Doug Osborne issued that invitation at the Sitka Chamber of Commerce’s weekly meeting Wednesday.
The $25,000 was awarded to Sitka as a winner in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s nationwide Culture of Health competition.
“We won this as a community,” said Osborne, a health educator at SEARHC. “We’re going to get community input on how to spend it. ... We’re really open to any idea, if you have a really creative idea.”
Doug Osborne
He said his goal is at least 750 comments by February 14, when the comment period closes.
“We need stories to inspire,” Osborne said. “They (the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation) started this program to honor and elevate communities that aren’t perfect in health, but that are making progress in health.”
A combination of efforts from social-emotional learning in Sitka schools to the community playground to renewable power generation were factors in earning the award, Osborne said.
Comments can be submitted online at sitkahealthsummit.org.
Osborne said he hoped the grant can be used in “creating conditions that give everybody a fair and just opportunity at their best possible health.”
