Marilyn Skrivseth and UW-Eau Claire received the Healthy Communities Champion award. The award recognizes their efforts to make Eau Claire County a healthier place in which to live. Eau Claire’s Healthy Communities coalition announced the awards during its annual celebration on Thursday, April 25th, 2019.
Individual Category Winner: Marilyn Skrivseth
Marilyn has limitless passion and energy to make our community healthier. Marilyn is a retired UWEC Kinesology Professor. She’s also Founder and President of the Chippewa Valley Pickleball Club. Marilyn has grown the love of the sport with people of all ages in the community. Through the Pickleball Club, she’s spearheaded an effort to make McDonough park an active aging park. The goal is to make it a place where people can gather around the growing sport and participate in other healthy lifestyle activities. To make this vision a reality, Marilyn spent countless hours meeting with anyone she felt could help advance her cause. Marilyn’s heard how pickleball has helped many people. Stories about how they’ve improved their physical health, mental health and social connections. Marilyn is an amazing advocate who challenges us to think about how we can keep the aging population healthier (as we know this population continues to grow).
Organization Category Winner: UW- Eau Claire
UW-Eau Claire has a history of being a strong community partner. In the past year, UWEC has been involved in many efforts to improve community health. A few examples are listed below.
• Eau Claire received funding from a competitive national grant (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for INVEST HEALTH). UWEC was part of the core team that worked on creative solutions to improve neighborhood health. Grant work resulted in action in Historic Randall Park, and to city housing policy.
• UWEC played a key role in conversations around alcohol policy initiatives. Faculty, staff, and students created a statement of the community problem related to high-risk alcohol use. They also developed potential solutions. One solution included supporting a City ordinance.
• UWEC helped the community move forward with a rental registration program. This is a new initiative to improve the health and safety of all housing, which includes student housing.
• UWEC participated in efforts related to public transportation, community bike sharing policy, opioid prevention, neighborhood revitalization and social connectedness, and community safety. All of these efforts impact our community health and well-being.
