Active Ottumwa Podcast Episode 10

Hannah Shultz: Welcome to A Community on the Move: The Story of Active Ottumwa. Active Ottumwa is a community-based research project that encourages all adults to be more active. Ottumwa community members and the University of Iowa use the latest research to design this project. The research project for Active Ottumwa has concluded but the Active Ottumwa program continues under the leadership of Hy-Vee of Ottumwa and with the positive support of community organizations. In this series, we’re learning from people involved in the project about what worked well, what they learned along the way, and the impact Active Ottumwa had on the community. Over the next 10 episodes, we will talk about many aspects of the Active Ottumwa project to learn about the successes, challenges, lessons learned, pride, and humility that went into this project. My name is Hannah Schultz, and I am the host for this series, and I’m learning about this program along with you. I work at the University of Iowa College of Public Health, but I have not been affiliated with Active Ottumwa until we started planning this podcast series. Working on this series has been a joy. I’ve been impressed every step of the way by the passion, commitment, dedication, and persistence of all involved in this project. And I am very excited to share this with you. One of the many reasons I’ve been impressed by this project and I’m so excited to share it with you is the active participation and inclusion of people representing many different communities, organizations, and interests in Ottumwa. The focus of Active Ottumwa was on physical activity, which came out of a community survey highlighting that this was a need for the community. The project used community resources to promote and support active living and physical activity across the community.

This is our last episode of Active Ottumwa: A Community on the Move. I’m a bit sad it’s coming to an end, but really excited to spend our last episode talking with Sandy Berto, Becky Bucklin, and Becky Graeve. We’ve heard from them all before, Sandy and Becky work at the University of Iowa College of Public Health Prevention Research Center. Sandy is based in Ottumwa, while Becky is in Iowa City. And Becky Graeve is a dietitian at Hy-Vee in Ottumwa and has taken over as coordinator of Active Ottumwa. Today we’re talking about what’s next for Active Ottumwa and how the transition from the University of Iowa coordination to Hy-Vee coordination has been.

Becky Graeve: I think it was going really pretty smoothly, I was feeling more comfortable with taking on the tasks month by month from Sandy. And then at the same time, kind of tweaking some of them to work for Hy-Vee and work for how I needed it to fit into, you know, my usual job. Sandy was, you know, a great resource whenever I had questions and we just kind of made, you know, each month put some more tasks onto my plate, so that it didn’t feel super overwhelming all at once. Because at the same time, my role within Hy-Vee was expanding, so I was covering more than one store and you know, multiple changes at the same time. It definitely helped me to have Sandy still be part of it and guiding me and keeping me on track.

Sandy Berto: Previously, we talked about the relationship within Ottumwa. And one of those relationships that I established was with Becky Graeve, with Hy-Vee. And we saw each other out and about within the community. And she had a really good idea of what we were all about. So I think that that transition was just so smooth and just happened. Becky brought a lot of good ideas to be able to incorporate not only the physical activity but also her dietician background, and I think it’s just a perfect fit, just a perfect fit.

Becky Graeve: The CAB was a really good piece as well, because they were people that had been in the community for a long time with this program. And so they actually helped more on the back end of really trying to help us think about what we needed to transition over to Becky Graeve before Becky Graeve had kind of agreed to take it on. So they helped us talk through some of those conversations because there was a lot out there. We had had five years of us creating documents and five years of us working with the community, gathering data, making those connections with the community. And so, I think they’re, and also I tend to go like a million miles a minute sometimes, especially when I get really excited about something as excited as I am about Active Ottumwa. And so I do think that having the CAB there to one, rein me in before I talk to Becky Graeve. And then Becky Graeve during those, we had a few days where I would just go down to Ottumwa and talk to her about all the different things and go through all of the different files that I had kind of gotten together with the CAB’s input. And then she graciously listened to all that I had to talk about, and she took it all in and she was you know, nodding your head. And really she kind of took the program and ran with it. Those are something I was going to say with the previous question when we were talking about the transition, being a success and how it was so successful. Some of it is that Becky Graeve, we should have brought her on way sooner with her great ideas. Like she had some amazing ideas that not only kept the program going, but like revitalized it in some ways. And I don’t know how we didn’t think you know, sometimes you hear an idea, and it’s so good. Like, why didn’t we do that earlier? Like, why wasn’t that something that we did from the beginning? Or how did we not think of that? I think she had a lot of those moments where it was like, oh, we should have done that. So she was in some really cool like virtual challenges that she was trying to get started because our Active Ottumwa Facebook, as we’ve heard earlier was such a big success in the community. So really, like why not do virtual challenges? Which also with COVID, was probably a really great push forward. You know, in hindsight, you don’t know what’s coming for you but that was a really great move. So anyway, I think that Becky had some really great ideas. But I also do think that the CAB helped kind of rein me in thinking about what are the really key important parts of Active Ottumwa that we need to transition on?

Hannah Shultz: I asked Becky Graeve about the commitment of Hy-Vee to take on the coordination. She explained that it fits well within her role, and within Hy-Vee’s role in the community.

Becky Graeve: So it’s not just that Hy-Vee is letting me do this you know, within my job role, it already just fits very well with what I do at the store level. And just an extension of, you know, helping me do my job as a dietician that much better.

Hannah Shultz: With COVID-19, Hy-Vee has had an even more important role in the community, which has really impacted the Active Ottumwa transition this year.

Becky Graeve: I really just had to get Sandy, well Sandy volunteered, I didn’t ask her. But Sandy got pulled in to help a little bit with the Facebook page, there definitely was some more virtual things that we could have been doing. However, you know, my job role went way low on the priority list. You know, really not even doing anything dietician related for two, three months and just you know, helping with the basic necessity of helping people get their groceries. And how that really was just very much an all-hands-on deck, everybody regardless of what your past role has been, helping in the store to make things run well. So yeah, I feel like I didn’t do anything that I normally would do for months on end, I’m sure many people are in the same role in different avenues that they worked, that they work at, their job roles that they have. But yeah, just very strange never would have predicted that kind of scenario. And for any of the private sector being involved, you know, moving forward, I think it’s important to recognize that the data that we collected for the research project was so instrumental, and me bringing this to the store directors and sharing my interest in taking over the role. Because the number of participants, you know, those are potential customers you know, at the store, and we can make those connections by yes, there’s a community need of a message that I’m helping to you know, keep going and grow. You know, but it does make good business sense to invest the time and the money into helping this program out because it can, in a very positive way help the online store too. And it’s not just about that, but I mean it all comes down to the numbers, right? For the people that are in charge. And so, you know, while I don’t have quite the need to keep track of things that you needed to do for the research project you know, I do still need to keep track of numbers, participating in the program so that I can share the information with my bosses and continue to get their approval to be invested with the project.

Becky Bucklin: In closing down, we did hear from Mary Lou on our previous podcast that even though we did close down Active Ottumwa activities doesn’t mean that the reach of the community wasn’t still being felt during this time of COVID. But we actually didn’t, programs were not being held. Sandy did a great job of continuing with the Facebook page, and really trying to get some information out there to people in the Ottumwa community who are connected to that page about some messaging around safety during the COVID time, as well as just more inspirational message messaging that everyone needs to hear right now. And some information about how to stay active because activity, some people during COVID became very active and then some people became very not active during COVID. There was kind of a whole gambit that was run during physical, like in regard to physical activity during COVID. And so I mean, there’s a lot, there’s a lot of course as researchers that we need to study and figure out with what’s happening in our communities and what our communities need. But I will say, Active Ottumwa will come back there may be some different procedures that are in place and there may be some things that are a little bit different. But really to protect the residents and the people who do attend activities, we wanted to make sure that we were not leading activities as we were going into that peak, and really that buildup of COVID before we really knew what was going on. One thing I think is really great about Hy-Vee taking this over is that I know that the CDC and other people, other people who work in the field of research and community engagement research are really excited about. So frequently, when we have a program, a huge part of getting a program up and running is thinking about sustainability. But it tends to go to like a nonprofit entity, or an entity in the community that is not part of the like corporate business sector. And so I think that one of the great things about Hy-Vee and when we talk to other researchers, or we talk to other people who do community engaged research, they’re really excited about a partnership with like an entity like Hy-Vee, that’s more of this like corporate sector because it’s so hard to get the corporate sector involved in many ways. But also the fact that Hy-Vee does have kind of commitment, and I’m that they kind of they do have a commitment to the communities with which they have established stores. And so it really did fit so beautifully together, definitely with Becky Graeve’s passion to healthy living. But really, it’s a very nontraditional partner for public health, but also they’re doing a lot of amazing things. And so, I think that that’s something we haven’t really talked about, and I really am grateful for Hy-Vee. But also, I think it’s a really key success of this whole program.

Hannah Shultz: In a previous episode, Mary Lou shared that she and a woman who regularly joined activities made hundreds of masks for the community this year. At a time when we’re not able to be together, stories like this highlight how relationships strengthened through Active Ottumwa have had a real impact on the community.

Becky Graeve: Yeah I think there’s some of those virtual kinds of things happening. I know one of the past instructors that has a yoga studio, kind of did a few things via her Facebook page. I think we’re going to hear more of those stories more as we finally are able to get back together and get past our social distancing a little bit. And I think you know, just as a community, I think many communities are probably this way, people step up to fill a need. And I think you know, time and time we see that happening with things like making the masks or you know, volunteering to bring somebody’s groceries home for them or something like that, to protect our neighbors and to help our community.

Sandy Berto: I think it also lends to the fact that how important emotional health is to physical health and physical health to mental health. And that there may have been a lot of Active Ottumwa participants who were checking in with each other with a phone call, with a Zoom, with email, things that we may never know about that we’re helping people sustain their lives in this crazy time. And I’m just about certain thinking of many of the participants of Active Ottumwa, that there are sustained relationships so that I knew that there are people checking in on each other, which I think is just fabulous.

Hannah Shultz: Throughout this series, we’ve heard the dedication and passion that has gone into this program. The stories have been at times nostalgic, and the conversation for this, the last episode has been especially so.

Sandy Berto: For me, it’s the PALs, the Physical Activity Leaders, it’s the enduring relationships that I will have, for a very long time. I think one of the final things that I took away from Active Ottumwa is how much fun it was, how much fun it was connecting the people, to encourage others to encourage others to become physically active. Several ladies used to go out and have coffee, new friendships and relationships were formed. And I know that kind of sounds, I sound like a broken record. But one thing that I personally learned, and I’m a lifelong Ottumwan, so I’ve lived and worked here all my life. From this position and putting not people together but pulling people to Active Ottumwa is that I really learned that there are so many good people doing so many good things here in Ottumwa. And sometimes we’re our very own worst enemy and always see the negative aspect of our communities. Ottumwa somewhat has that reputation. So I would just really like to dispel that myth. Because I know some phenomenal people who are just doing marvelous things, but it all takes just baby steps and people working together, nobody’s going to do this all by themselves. And that’s exert, you know, a project to be positive within our communities. So nobody does it all by themselves and I think Active Ottumwa was just a beautiful example of that.

Becky Bucklin: That’s a really hard question for me because I’m so excited about this project, always. Like, I think it’s just the most amazing thing to be a part of. I’m from Illinois, which you know, in many ways acts like Iowa sometimes, but not always. And so I didn’t know what Ottumwa was being from Illinois, when I was in my grad degree and first started with this project. And then after I graduated, and I really became more involved. I truly do love the Ottumwa community, I love the people in Ottumwa, I love the organizations in Ottumwa, I love the parks of Ottumwa, I love all of the community events of Ottumwa. So there’s so many amazing, wonderful things happening. And we’ve made so many great memories with our research team, our research team, everybody loves Ottumwa and respects the people of Ottumwa who have really made this project happen. I mean, my favorite thing probably is actually meeting Sandy, and getting to know Sandy better, you know, because she’s she truly is a delight to work with. And at the same time, all these community events that you see, so if it’s like a specific event, I don’t even know which one to choose from because Ottumwa has these really great events where they bring people together that we would be a part of that we would, I would see Sandy in action connecting with the people of Ottumwa and every time it like made my heart melt. And also just like the PALs that I’ve met, and the CAB members that I’ve met, and really just building those relationships, there’s not really just one specific relationship, it’s just every time I would go down to Ottumwa, a part of my myself would change in a better way. So I owe a lot to this project. And I just hope that our project helps give as much back to Ottumwa as Ottumwa has given.

Becky Graeve: Well, two things one Active Ottumwa is kind of something that for me just snuck up on me. And in basically I lived in Ottumwa for the duration of the five-year project and probably moved here right as it was getting started. Maybe a little bit after actually. And so you know, gradually getting exposed by Sandy and I both being at the same community events. To Active Ottumwa it quite literally just snuck up on me. My favorite memory probably though is at the Christmas celebration. We had I think we had the meeting first at the office and then we all walked to go to dinner together. And one of the researchers and I were so animatedly talking about the project. We went and outwalked everybody and like, walking super-fast and got there and we turned our heads and everybody’s like, you know, dawdling behind. But we just had no concept of about where we were at because we were so into a conversation and I love moments like that so..

Hannah Shultz: Well, this next question may seem like something we should have talked about at the beginning, we didn’t. So it came up today, I asked our guests about the physical activities, did they try new activities? Were they surprised by what worked and what didn’t? What activities drew crowds, how activities were chosen. And I was kind of surprised by their answers.

Becky Bucklin: I had never tried tai chi before. So I’m a group fitness instructor and I have been for quite a few years, almost, probably eight years now. And I’ve always wanted to try tai chi, but it’s kind of hard-to-find tai chi classes. And so I was able to try Mary Hart’s tai chi classes, she is a phenomenal instructor. And honestly, tai chi is way harder than what anyone would ever guess it is like it takes so much core and so much stability. But at the same time, it’s very approachable for so many different people. And though I walk all the time, and I walk with friends all the time, I don’t know if I’ve ever done a walking group with like a whole group of people. It’s a very different experience than going out with one friend, when you have like a whole group of people together, walking. So I mean, other than like a 5k it’s like somewhere in between these walking 5k’s that you can go to and support of whatever really great initiatives that someone’s trying to put money forward for or gather money for. It’s like a mix between them, like walking with a friend. So I don’t know, there’s so many more really great dynamics in the walking group. I’m getting really into my like fitness side, but I do think tai chi’s an amazing activity and I’m so glad that we had it.

Sandy Berto: And then just to give Mary Hart a shout out, she is a certified tai chi instructor, which of course you know, the city of Ottumwa for the size is just absolutely amazing. Mary had been part of the YMCA and also taught tai chi at the Y and then did on for us on Saturday’s. And even after she stopped doing classes at the Y she continued to do and teach classes for Active Ottumwa at no cost. We did initially hold that class here in the office, but it grew to be so big that we had to move it to the conference rooms at the local hospital, which was pretty amazing in itself. With the PALs, we pretty much said you know when they expressed any interest in Active Ottumwa I would just say “well, what would you like to do?” Because there’s no point in asking somebody to lead a walking group if they just don’t like walking, and there’s no reason to invite somebody to do water walking if they hate getting wet. So I would always approach it with the fact that what would you like to do? Would you like to lead a group? Actually, most of the time, anybody who started in an activity and who would recommend something to me, I would say “what time do you have available on your calendar that you could do this?” And surprisingly, there were several people that did accept my offer. We did a video class on Body Groove; we bought the videos for the PALs. And there was a large group of women who came and did Body Groove over the video. We also did yoga live video because certified yoga instructors are hard to find here in the Ottumwa area. And one, this one particular PAL said “well, I’m at home doing yoga on my DVD, I figured there must be somebody else out there.” So I think the whole mindset of well sure, let’s try it. You know, maybe there’ll be lots of people come and maybe nobody will come. We also did a class on stretching, which was very well received. Yeah, which was kind of a surprise and that was done by video too. So when you talk about a rural area where we might not always have those certified instructors or fitness instructors, where there’s a will, there’s a way. And I just kind of gave it up to the PALs and said “here, you own it and go for it. And I just assisted with the contacts at the locations where to hold the classes and answering the questions and assist with the, you know, the paperwork and checking in with them to see what I could help with. And I think it worked really well.

Becky Bucklin: We had this Latinas group, specifically in Spanish speaking classes being led in Spanish. And that group really surprised me by how close knit they were, I think a lot of the PALs would go to other PALs classes, which surprised me just like how close the PALs themselves got. But then also that Latinas group how close that group got, and how they really did look out for one another. And so those were all some of my big surprises. And then, I mean everything was kind of a surprise, because you don’t know how many resources the community has until you really start talking to the community. And so I was constantly surprised by the number of resources that we had available to us. If Sandy was asking the right people the right question, which is, I think the whole thing is like you can ask and people can say no, or they might say yes, or they might say, actually I can’t do that, but this person would be a really great contact. So just the networks were always I don’t know, if it was necessarily surprised, but always astounded me by just how much you could get done if you ask questions to the right people. And then on the other end, part of that was location. So a huge thing with leading Active Ottumwa and one of our biggest like successful things that we did, was making it so we could have programming all year round. In Iowa during the winter, it gets cold and when it’s cold you don’t want to lead a walking group, or there’s ice that can make it dangerous to lead a walking group, there’s like a lot of reasons why you wouldn’t want to go outside. So as much as it’s difficult to get people to be physically active in Southern California, or in anywhere in the south where the weather’s fairly warm all year round, it can be very difficult to maintain activity during the winter here in Iowa. And so one of our biggest successes and like things that was the most difficult, were getting people to be able to have activities that are safe for them in the wintertime. And so those partnerships that Sandy made some of those locations I was just very surprised that they one, agreed to participate. I think some of that is that Sandy is very convincing. But also just, I wouldn’t have even thought that an activity could be led there, and they made it work safely, they made it work safely. That’s part of the problem too, it’s not only just that you can lead an activity somewhere, but if it’s not done safely that’s a whole other thing. So I think that was another one of our biggest successes, were these indoor options. But also, the ability that Sandy had to maintain relationships with the places that were letting us do things indoors. We did kind of drill it in, there was well we’re making this transition, Hy-Vee’s taking it over, we had a lot of those messages. And it was like a soft handoff, so Sandy would get an email from somebody that should be directed at Becky, we would send it over Becky’s way. So this kind of like gentle guide for people over to the Hy-Vee side.

Becky Graeve: You know, one of my next steps in the transition process was to take that list and kind of go out and knock-on people’s doors, so to speak. And you know, make sure that they had heard that I was you know, leading the group at this point and kind of reestablish and make sure that we still had all those connections going. I see that as a big part of my role you know, moving forward is to you know, stay present in everybody’s mind that this is still going on. And then be that kind of glue that helps hold all the volunteers together, you know, keeping them going with their activities. And now we’ve got a little hiccup of COVID in the middle of things that we’ll have to, you know, trying to get everybody rebooted to get back on the same page again.

Hannah Shultz: One of my favorite questions to ask throughout this series has been what impact has Active Ottumwa had on you personally? I couldn’t resist asking our guests today.

Sandy Berto: Long standing relationship and friendship. People that I can continue to call and say “hey, can you help me help Becky Graeve out with this?” But I think just the relationships, I know that just sounds so hokey over and over again. But when we were talking about, when Becky Bucklin was talking about the different places where we held activities. And I thought of the Good Samaritan Center, which is an extended care, it’s an assisted living, it’s an independent living group all together. And I was at one of our healthy community meetings and said “hey, we need some space, anybody have any room that they like to share in the evening time?” And it wasn’t but the next meeting that the HR person from Good Sam contacted me and said, “we’ve got this level of area come visit.” And honestly, I wouldn’t have ever thought that we would have had a program, and I think we did Body Groove out at Good Sam, so that was kind of an amazing thing to me.

Becky Bucklin: I would agree that probably the thing that’s impacted me the most is just how deep of commitment a community can have. So research projects, and then also how deep of a commitment researchers can have to a community when they open themselves up to not just try to be, you know, more boxy researchers. So if we, as researchers really can open ourselves up to really listening to community. I had studied, I got my MPH from the University of Iowa, right before I really amped up on being a part of this program. And so I think that this has contributed a really good face for me in community engaged research, and how fulfilling that research can be and how important that research is. I knew I got that from my classes, but you don’t actually feel the connection until you work on such a great community engaged project. So I think as a new, massive public health professional, this was, I couldn’t have asked for a better project to really help me grow and learn how to be a good community engaged researcher. I mean, of course I made mistakes along the way, but I had really great mentors who guided me back. And then I had Sandy in the community constantly helping keep me in check. But it was a really great project to learn how to be really engaged in the community and with the community

Becky Graeve: My connection to the project is less than a year at this point with a big hiccup, as Sandy would say, in the middle of a huge hiccup. So you know, I don’t know how yet it’ll change me going forward, I think you know, there’s one challenge of smaller communities is that when you are not from the community, it’s harder to make those community connections. And so I think this has helped me in a way to you know, get more people in the community to know me and my role both with Active Ottumwa and with Hy-Vee, and just get my messaging out to a greater number of people. You know, it’s not the same as there’s another dietician that I’ve worked with here in town, who grew up here and everybody knows her. And so, you know, she’s got more connections because of that, well Active Ottumwa has probably helped me you know, very much so accelerate how many people in the community know me just by being involved.

Hannah Shultz: This series, again, is supposed to help other communities implement similar programs. So I asked about good mistakes that were made along the way that they would share as advice for others.

Sandy Berto: One of the things that I heard from several of the participants along the way was, “why not, why can’t we combine healthy eating with the physical activity? And why can’t we include families and children under the age of 18, where we encourage people to bring their preschoolers and their middle school kids.” And of course, we were confined within the constraints of the grant that said it had to be physical activity in adults. Now, if there was a well behaved you know, 15-year-old, and we didn’t have to worry about somebody getting kicked in the head in tai chi like, that sounds like it’s Kung Fu doesn’t it? Which I’ve worked really hard to dispel that myth as well. But I think that with Becky Graeve and Hy-Vee it’s really come full circle as to what perhaps Ottumwa really would like. And I think Becky has that, that background with kid’s health and the dietitian piece that we have participants asking for not very long after I started. And it was like, “oh, gee, I’d really like to be able to say yes.” Actually, my favorite phrase was, “well, let me check with the team in Iowa City.” Because I knew the answer was no, we have to follow the guidelines of the grant. You know, but now it’s, so maybe that was a big mistake, not a big mistake, but I think it’s fun to see it come kind of full circle as to what the community was asking for.

Becky Bucklin: I don’t know if that’s necessarily a mistake, but when we first started the projects we really wanted the Physical Activity Leaders to come from kind of worksite through a social network analysis. And we did this very beautiful, like analyses. And we had people who nominated other individuals in their kind of like social circles to be Physical Activity Leaders, would reach out to them, try to train them. And they were supposed to be kind of like the leaders of the community that other people identified as leaders, being the Physical Activity Leaders. And when we first started the project, we had quite a few people through that process. But part of that was that a lot of those individuals were already over maxed, and overbooked. And so that’s kind of how the ambassadors and I think we do talk about that in another podcast. But the ambassador role kind of came out of that. But also, we really started going towards the role of Physical Activity Leader self-nominating, not that we didn’t allow it in the beginning. But we kind of let people come to events, hear what a Physical Activity Leader was, and decided that yes, I am a leader of my community, or I have the capacity to be a leader of my community and I want to be a Physical Activity Leader. And so not that it was a mistake necessarily to go to these work sites first. But I think part of the mistake there is just expecting that people can’t identify themselves as a leader, that other people need to identify themselves as a leader. I think it’s really important that we kind of corrected that mistake and said, actually, anybody can be a leader in their community with the right like supports and with the right access to someone like Sandy to help them set up their programs. With the right training, anybody can become a Physical Activity Leader and so I think, not necessarily a mistake, but I think definitely a learning process that everybody can be a Physical Activity Leader. And so we did mitigate that mistake, mistake in quotes, but yeah.

Sandy Berto: I do know that sometimes employers will say, “oh yeah, University of Iowa was looking for somebody to lead this program, and this is going to be an additional duty.” So there wasn’t that real ownership, where I think some of the self-identifying PALs have the ownership to continue to make their own activities successful.

Hannah Shultz: As we finalize this series, I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who participated in it. I learned a lot along the way and fell in love with Active Ottumwa a little bit. We could not have put this series together without every person who has been involved in this project for the last several years. Over the course of the last 10 episodes we’ve heard from 22 guests, thank you: Becky, Sandy, Rima, Barbara, Himar, Garrett, Kim, Twila, Mary, Betty, Remi, Blair, Joe, Connie, Lou, Becky, Gene, Kathy, Sylvia, Peggy, Heidi, and Natoshia, for sharing your time, talent, and stories with our listeners. Another thanks to Lori Walkner and Melissa Richland for production support, and many others throughout the University of Iowa College of Public Health and Ottumwa. Thank you for tuning in. Thanks to the Midwestern Public Health Training Center for production support, the team at the University of Iowa Prevention Research Center for Rural Health, the Ottumwa community, and then many guests and contributors we talk with throughout these 10 episodes. See the podcast notes for more information about Active Ottumwa and to connect with our team.

This podcast is a product of the Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Research Center, supported by cooperative agreement number U48DP006389 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The findings and conclusions in this podcast are those of the contributors and do not necessarily represent the official position of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.