HEALTH AND WELLBEING PROGRAMMING

Health Care Dis­par­i­ties and Well­be­ing Initiatives

After much research around how to impact obe­sity and chronic ill­ness related to obe­sity over the long term, SERA, Inc. will be offer­ing the pro­grams listed in the attach­ments.  All pro­grams offered to meet the goal of obe­sity erad­i­ca­tion, will have an eval­u­a­tion com­po­nent to it.  We will also be launch­ing an Inte­gra­tive Health Cen­ter in Jan­u­ary which will offer “com­ple­men­tary” health and well­ness ser­vices in part­ner­ship with participant’s health­care providers.  The way to shift from a con­di­tion of obe­sity to a life that is healthy and fit  is by chang­ing harm­ful and unhealthy behav­iors for the long term through health and well­ness coach­ing and train­ing which teaches peo­ple how to “man­age” the dif­fi­cul­ties around weight loss and their health.

Part of enhanc­ing the qual­ity of life of the res­i­dents within the 57 square mile radius of South­east Raleigh is to encour­age res­i­dents to take con­trol of their health and well­be­ing.  SERA, Inc. is com­mit­ted to assist­ing South­east Raleigh res­i­dents to recon­sider their own power over their own phys­i­cal, emo­tional, and spir­i­tual apti­tude.  We are pro­vid­ing res­i­dents with an oppor­tu­nity to increase car­dio vas­cu­lar func­tion and reduce obe­sity by host­ing the state’s first “Danc­ing N the Park” 12 week series. Click here to see WRAL’s cov­er­age of our first Danc­ing N the Park fit­ness event.

Part I

Danc­ing N the Park a col­lab­o­ra­tive led by SERA, Inc., grass­roots com­mu­nity orga­niz­ers and a cer­ti­fied fit­ness instruc­tor, along with a real turntable DJ.  Hun­dreds of South­east Raleigh res­i­dents gather weekly in a South­east Raleigh park to dance their way to fit­ness via a struc­tured hour long exer­cise dance rou­tine.  Each week is a dif­fer­ent theme, from Zumba, Oldies but Good­ies, Afro-Brazilian Groves, Jamaican Funk, Hip Hop, to Praise Party.  Par­tic­i­pants are given oppor­tu­ni­ties to win mem­ber­ships to fit­ness clubs, week­ends at national hotels, and other health related prizes.

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Part II

We know that high blood pres­sure along with other mal­adies are lead­ing causes of heart dis­ease, stroke, and death.  These con­di­tions are at epi­demic pro­por­tions in the South­east Raleigh com­mu­nity.  The project will pro­vide out­reach and edu­ca­tion to local cit­i­zens and small busi­nesses who serve cit­i­zens rein­forc­ing the impor­tance of blood pres­sure read­ings and fol­low up.  Small busi­ness own­ers in the South­east Raleigh com­mu­nity will be taught how to uti­lize a blood pres­sure gauge machine and test cus­tomers com­ing into their stores.  Cus­tomers will be pro­vided coun­sel­ing and follow-up through SERA, Inc. with regard to edu­ca­tion, set­ting appoint­ments and vis­its with specialist.

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Part III

South­east Raleigh res­i­dents will be pro­vided with advo­cates who will work with them when they believe their clin­i­cal encounter has gone awry, their health­care provider is not “hear­ing” them, or they believe their med­ical needs are not being met.  SERA, Inc. and its vol­un­teers will pro­vide res­i­dents with medi­ated con­ver­sa­tions with med­ical staff and work to inter­vene and bring about a win-win solu­tion which will result in the citizen/patient com­pli­ance with Dr.’s instruc­tions as they relate to improved health and well­be­ing.  Many of the vol­un­teers on this project work within the med­ical field and include physi­cians, nurses, and hos­pi­tal staff.

Clin­i­cal staff will also be pro­vided oppor­tu­ni­ties to learn how to stream­line their prac­tice and work through the issues of HMO’s, PPO’s as it relates to qual­ity clin­i­cal encoun­ters with their patients.  Also included are edu­ca­tional and facil­i­tated oppor­tu­ni­ties for med­ical staff to enhance their cul­tural com­pe­tency tool box through diver­sity exchanges and trainings.

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Liv­ing Life To The Fullest Through Self-Love (LLFS)

SERA, Inc.’s “LLFS” self-advocacy, pre­ven­ta­tive health and well­ness pro­gram, is designed to cre­ate an under­stand­ing in South­east Raleigh res­i­dents of the power they have to quickly extend their lifes­pan, cre­ate  health and well­ness in their own lives and live fully by prac­tic­ing some very sim­ple steps.

HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE THE SILENT KILLER — Hyper­ten­sion, or high blood pres­sure, has no notice­able symp­toms. That’s why it is com­monly referred to as a “silent killer”. Untreated high blood pres­sure can lead to a greater risk for stroke, heart attack, or other heart dam­age. Nor­mal blood pres­sure is less than 120 sys­tolic over 80 dias­tolic —often writ­ten as 120/80 mm Hg (read 120 over 80 mil­lime­ters of mer­cury). If you have a doc­tor, he or she should mea­sure your blood pres­sure dur­ing each visit. If your doc­tor finds that your blood pres­sure is con­sis­tently higher after sev­eral vis­its, you may be diag­nosed with hypertension.

HIGH RISK FOR HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE AND HEART DISEASE — The odds are good that most peo­ple will have high blood pres­sure in their life­time. In fact, more than 74 mil­lion Amer­i­can adults have high blood pres­sure. Approx­i­mately 90% of peo­ple with nor­mal blood pres­sure at age  55 are at risk for devel­op­ing high blood pres­sure as they get older. African Amer­i­cans and His­panic pop­u­la­tions are at greater risk for devel­op­ing high blood pres­sure and deadly heart dis­ease than other eth­nic­i­ties.  Remem­ber, that even though high blood pres­sure is quite com­mon, it is still a dan­ger­ous con­di­tion that should be mon­i­tored closely by a doc­tor.  While work­ing closely with a doc­tor to fol­low a health and well­ness plan is an excel­lent strat­egy, you don’t have to wait for a physi­cian to mon­i­tor your blood pres­sure, you can be taught to con­duct a read­ing your­self.  By doing so, you will under­stand how your body is react­ing to stres­sors, such as food, exter­nal and inter­nal stress and other fac­tors and become bet­ter able to man­age your health and quickly make the changes needed to regain healthy blood pres­sure lev­els.  Remem­ber that “pre­ven­tion is worth a pound of cure.”

THE STAGES OF HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE — Nor­mal blood pres­sure is less than 120/80. When a per­son has a blood pres­sure read­ing between 120/80 and 139/89, this con­di­tion is called pre-hypertension. Stage 1 hyper­ten­sion is defined as 140–159/90–99, and a blood pres­sure above those lev­els is con­sid­ered Stage 2 hyper­ten­sion.

OUR COMMITMENT TO SOUTHEAST RALEIGH — SERA, Inc. will work with com­mu­nity bar­ber shops, salons and faith insti­tu­tions to edu­cate com­mu­nity mem­bers via facil­i­tat­ing expe­ri­en­tial activ­i­ties which include tak­ing blood pres­sure read­ings, and coun­sel­ing pro­gram par­tic­i­pants ( i.e. busi­ness own­ers, clergy, clien­tele and con­gre­ga­tion mem­bers) as well as cre­at­ing onsite oppor­tu­ni­ties for follow-up and ongo­ing pre­ven­ta­tive train­ing in part­ner­ship with mem­bers of the med­ical com­mu­nity.  We believe that self-love through pre­ven­ta­tive care can cre­ate a qual­ity of life for SER res­i­dents that will enhance their abil­ity to live longer, and assist in find­ing ful­fill­ment in life in order to reach pin­na­cles of suc­cess they would oth­er­wise not be able to do were they in a state of “dis-ease”.

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The McGuire Foundation

This vir­tual foun­da­tion is a “grand-friend” pro­gram and its pur­pose is to give back to the seniors in our com­mu­nity who have given so much of their time and energy to their com­mu­nity.  We match young peo­ple who have com­mu­nity ser­vice hours either in school, or because they have made a minor fool­ish mis­take and want to cor­rect it, and have them pro­vide a bevy of ser­vices to South­east Raleigh seniors (i.e. walk­ing their ani­mals, going to the store for or with them, and being a gen­eral com­pan­ion to them.)  This pro­gram is co-directed by SERA, Inc. staff and a fif­teen year old young lady who befriended, Mrs. McGuire, a senior cit­i­zen.  The youth and Mrs. McGuire became very close and the rela­tion­ship expanded the youth’s world as she helped Mrs. McGuire nav­i­gate her own.  Mrs. McGuire recently passed away and this pro­gram is in mem­ory to honor her.

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The Fruits of Our Labor

SERA, Inc. announces our com­mu­nity gar­den endeavor!The endeavor is a part­ner­ship between SERA, Inc. and ROOT 1 (Rec­og­niz­ing Our Own Tal­ent !).  The part­ner­ship is flour­ish­ing in the his­toric Rochester Heights Com­mu­nity, near down­town Raleigh. Ajuba Joy, a long­time South­east Raleigh res­i­dent, SERA Vol­un­teer and Com­mu­nity Activist, is the founder and Execu­tor of ROOT1.

The goal of the SERA, Inc./ROOT1 part­ner­ship is to enhance sus­tain­abil­ity prac­tices, con­nect the gen­er­a­tions through gar­den­ing and har­vest­ing ini­tia­tives, and empower the com­mu­nity to eat and live healthy.  In April, the gar­den endeavor began to break ground, fer­til­ize the soil and mulch.  In May the plant­ing began.

Yel­low and Zuc­chini squash, toma­toes, water­melon, cayenne, banana and jalapeño pep­pers are among the veg­eta­bles and fruits being planted. The small gar­den con­tains flow­ers, bush, long leaf and Ital­ian basil, mint, lemon balm, sage and thyme. The fra­grances’ are pun­gent and vis­ceral a joy to the senses!

The SERA, Inc./ ROOT1 gar­den endeavor par­tic­i­pated in the Food Shuttle’s, Plant A Row for the Hun­gry ini­tia­tive last year and the part­ner­ship donated the ripened pep­pers to the Food Shut­tle.   This year we are excited at the poten­tial to reach out and impact cit­i­zens directly through the garden.

The summer’s intense heat and dry con­di­tions can take its toll on gar­dens around the city but it is never  too hot for theSERA, Inc./ROOT1 pep­pers.  This year com­mu­nity mem­bers will have an oppor­tu­nity to par­take of the har­vested veg­eta­bles and fruits in the gar­den as soon as they are har­vested.  Ajuba Joy and many of the garden’s vol­un­teers have grown up with gar­dens or have had gar­dens and are experts in plant­ing and grow­ing the health­i­est crops possible.

Those of you who have not seen Ajuba’s work in the com­mu­nity gar­den, must see it.., it is inspi­ra­tional and has brought about com­mu­nity con­nect­ed­ness and rela­tion­ship build­ing through the task of plant­ing in the earth and watch­ing beauty flour­ish. By late August, SERA, Inc./ROOT1 will have planted col­lard greens and broc­coli. It was no stretch when the invi­ta­tion went out to the neigh­bors, to become involved. SERA, Inc. /ROOT1 gar­den endeavor will have vol­un­teers from Wake For­est and Durham, NC. The youngest vol­un­teer last year was age 3 and the eldest was 75.  Ajuba and SERA, Inc. would like to thank all of the vol­un­teers who have given of their time and sup­port and all of those who will be par­tic­i­pat­ing to improve the qual­ity of life for south­east Raleigh res­i­dents through healthy eat­ing!  We are in the process of expand­ing the gar­den to a larger plot of land in order to meet the demands of the cit­i­zens to expe­ri­ence healthy fruits and veg­eta­bles grown from local earth in their neighborhood!

For Infor­ma­tion or to donate to this sus­tain­able part­ner­ship please con­tact or send a check to:

SERA, Inc./Root 1 Endeavor
19 West Har­gett Street (suite 200)
Raleigh, NC  27601
919–747-8422

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