HOW IT ALL BEGAN
Tim Dressman, CEO of St. Leonard, following his first exposure to the Vital Life concept, at a state conference lecture, given by Bill Witte, Executive Director of THE VITAL NATION, determined that his community would be the first community in America to submerse itself into a total community vitality program, all people included, from top to bottom – the Vital Life way.
To that end, he instructed his Wellness Director to attend the “Reversing The Aging Process Symposium - Through Purpose-Driven Community Living”, sponsored by the Vital Nation, held at Stone Mountain Resort, Stone Mountain, Georgia in May of 2008 with instructions to find out about the program, and to see if it was practical for their community to employ, to enable them to enhance their financial sustainability in the coming years, as well as to further enhance the St. Leonard brand as the premier life quality retirement community.
Debra Stewart – St. Leonard Wellness Director, attended and participated actively in the Atlanta 2-day conference (you can see it online on our web-site http://www.vitallifecommunity.info/av/av.html) featuring the research and construct of a new program called “The Vital Life Community Wellness Program” which was designed to help individuals reverse their own morbidity and turn back the clock on unnecessary premature aging. The catch was, however, that most people could not affect this metamorphosis alone, but needed a support group for sustainability. The support group the Vital Life Community Program had in mind was a purpose-driven community called “THE VITAL LIFE COMMUNITY”.
The Vital Life Community Program, Debra learned, was not a culture-change program that would re-direct or upset the culture or organization of an existing community, but an “overlay”; more of a sharpened focus, if you will, for communities to begin to see what they do well, and create new programs (themselves) to do even better. The key was “socialization”.
Debra participated in the vetting, critiques, and vision sessions at the “Reverse the Aging Process” Symposium and then flew back to Centerville to discuss with Tim what she had learned. From there they laid out a cautious, but deliberate implementation strategy, which when followed through, paid off.