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By Steve Taylor, Reporter
EDINBURG, Texas – When Methodist Healthcare Ministries of South Texas (MHM) first started thinking of implementing a Blue Zones program in the Rio Grande Valley they had four cities in mind – Edinburg, McAllen, Mission and Pharr.
Now, three more Rio Grande Valley cities could be added: Brownsville, Harlingen and Weslaco.
The MHM board agreed to spend $1 million on an assessment of Edinburg, McAllen, Mission and Pharr, to see if they were ready.
Now, Knapp Medical Center Foundation has agreed to fund an assessment of Weslaco, to see if it is ready for a Blue Zones project, and Valley Baptist Legacy Foundation has agreed to fund an assessment of Brownsville and Harlingen.
Nothing has been decided yet because more sponsors have to be found.
“I could not be more excited about having seven cities involved,” said Jaime Wesolowski, MHM’s president and CEO. “We started this as our dream of assessing the four cities in Hidalgo County, with the hopes that perhaps one of them would be ready. But as it has turned out, we learned today that all four of them (Edinburg, McAllen, Mission and Pharr) are ready.”
“But what’s even more exciting is that Knapp Community Care Foundation and Valley Baptist Legacy Foundation… they’ve been working with us and helping us open doors in Hidalgo County, and they said, you know what, our cities need to do this also. Knapp Community Care Foundation has talked to their board, and they’re going to fund an assessment very similar to what we just did, but for Weslaco, and Valley Baptist Legacy Foundation has convinced their board that they’re going to pay for an assessment for Brownsville and Harlingen.”
“If you add that up, that’s seven cities. And if those three additional cities are as excited as the four, we just talked about over the last two days. We could have seven cities. If this happens it would be the largest Blue Zones program ever done in the world.”
“We can be role models for the rest of the country, not only the rest of the country, outside the country, because the difference we can make in the Rio Grande Valley is going to be measured by Gallup. And they are not going to say something that’s not true. They have their reputation to depend on. So, we’ll set goals for each of the cities, they’ll measure the outcomes of our goals, and we’ll be able to prove that we are improving health and well-being in the Rio Grande Valley.”
The idea for Blue Zones to be working in the Valley came about an Aspen Institute event in Denver a couple of years ago, when Wesolowski met Dan Buettner, Sr., founder of Blue Zones. “We both realized that there is a strong possibility of us doing something incredibly special in the Valley,” Wesolowski said.
When asked how big a deal it would be to have all seven cities involved, Wesolowski said: “It would be transformational.”
Cristina Trejo-Vasquez, CEO of Knapp Medical Center Foundation, said her group will have a kickoff event for Weslaco’s assessment on Sept. 1.
“So, we’re a little bit behind. They (MHM and Blue Zones) are already unveiling their results (for Edinburg, McAllen, Mission and Pharr). We still have to do ours,” Trejo-Vasquez told the Rio Grande Guardian.
“But as we come along… now we’re beginning to think of what would a regional strategy (for Blue Zones) look like? Tomorrow, Jaime (Wesolowski) is going to be approaching potential sponsors. We are not planning to not move together as a region. It is a possibility, but hopefully not. The three foundations (MHM, Knapp, and Valley Baptist) and the cities are going into this thinking, this is going to be a regional experience.”
MHM and Blue Zones gave their assessment on whether Edinburg, McAllen, Mission and Pharr were ready for a Blue Zones program, at four events on Monday and Tuesday. Anything above a ranking of 4.0 means a city is ready. Pharr received 4.2, McAllen, 4.0, Edinburg 3.9, and Mission 3.7.
“We did a six-month assessment starting earlier this year of four major cities in Hidalgo County. We gave our reports to every one of these cities over the last two days. The good news is that all four cities are ready to embrace a Blue Zones-type lifestyle,” Wesolowski said.
“Blue Zones meaning we’re changing nine key elements, or the Power of Nine within these cities, making the healthy choice the easier choice, making it a place that has easy movement, looking at slightly better diets while embracing the cultural value of the diet that we have here in Rio Grande Valley. It’s an opportunity to really improve the health and well-being of the Valley.”
City leaders spoke at the four events, prior to the results being announced. Here is what they said:
Norie Gonzalez Garza, Mayor Mission:
“I will be brief because I’m so excited about the results that I don’t want to take a lot of this time for my welcome, but I do welcome you to the City of Mission and to our Mission Event Center. I am excited about the Blue Zone possibility initiative here in the City of Mission. I think that it’s a great thing. It is concerning what our statistics are, the health statistics here in the Valley, and, of course, as a mayor, I understand that the ground level for bettering a community is having a healthy community.
“So, I’m excited about the possibility of partnering with everyone here and making this a great possibility for the entire Rio Grande Valley. I want to thank everyone that participated in getting this together. I met Jamie (Wesolowski) in February, and of course I was excited, totally excited. I remember our city secretary said, ‘Do you really want to meet these people? They’re called Blue Zone. I said, yes, absolutely, we’re meeting with them.
“And it’s been like that since then. I still have that level of excitement, and I hope that everyone today takes this initiative to another level of excitement, to get our program off the ground and running for the whole entire region. So, thank you so much for being here. Thank you, Jamie. Thank you for your staff. You all are wonderful, and I just can’t wait to see what happens here.”
Dr. Ramiro Caballero, MD, Pharr City Commissioner:
Pharr City Commissioner Dr. Ramiro Caballero, MD.
“From the city’s perspective, we have a very strong commitment to our community. You can see this through the initiatives we have taken. First of all, of course, everybody’s met Liz. She’s head of our public health department, which is a very important department for the city of Pharr. It was very important that we created an environment for our community to get healthy and to have resources that other cities do not have. Other things that we’ve done, throughout our commitment to healthcare in our community is our EMS service, which is one of the premier EMS services in Hidalgo County, and in South Texas, actually. The other thing we’ve done is create our 9-1-1 Center, our regional call center. We do not only provide services to the City of Pharr but to other communities in our local region as well.”
“You know about our internet service. We learned from our COVID experience how important it was to our community to be able to communicate. And during those isolation times, it was a horrible experience, and we learned from that. We learned from our community what they needed and what was expected of us. It was a huge undertaking, and we have tremendous partners in that initiative. And so far, we have continued to grow and have created a great service not only to our senior citizens but our young kids with their education as well. And we continue by having teaching opportunities for senior citizens on how to use computers, how to make them literate, and to be able to communicate.”
“Having Methodist Healthcare Ministries come down to South Texas is really, really important. As you understand, the healthcare of the community is driven a lot by the environment, the choices that people take, and for you guys trying to educate our community, and this area, there’s a big, big need. It’s not just how long you live; it’s the quality of life that you have, and that is the tremendous impact you are going to have. I honor you for being here, and I am really glad that the City of Pharr is working with you because you have become a tremendous team player, and you are making us better. I really appreciate your services, and I look forward to seeing what your data shows and how we can improve because it’s always about improvement. We can only make critical decisions if we have the right information. On behalf of the mayor, the commission, the City of Pharr, welcome and thank you for being our partner.”
Javier Villalobos, mayor of McAllen:
McAllen Mayor Javier Villalobos
“I haven’t been very involved, so they (the Blue Zones team) talked to me last week, hey, mayor we’re going to have this thing called Blue Zones. I hadn’t the slightest idea what Blue Zones was. But they did tell me look at a documentary about Blue Zones.I did not watch all of it but at least I got an idea about what it is. It is so important because, at the very end, we all know what we want for ourselves, our families. We want a good, nice, healthy life. I don’t want to live to 100. I really don’t. But I want to live healthy as long as I can. And that’s something that’s so important.”
“I’m excited about this. If you want community assistance. I’m ready. I’m ready to go. I know our team is. This is something that’s important to us. And here in McAllen, look, we have parks, we have trails, we have so many things. But how do we get people engaged? How do we get them to say, ‘you know what, I want to be part of this. I haven’t been able to do it, but I will try.’
“I was doing my pushup challenge where I was doing 60 pushups. I do different types of things, and sometimes people engage, and sometimes they don’t. But hopefully, with assistance here, we can do it. So, I’m so excited, and hopefully I can call you all my partners because this is what I want to do. It’s something that’s so important to me. Even though to us it is (often about) water, sewers, streets, drainage, but the health of our people is of the utmost importance. So, thank you very much and thank you very much for inviting me. And I’m so eager to learn what we’re going to do.”
Omar Ochoa, mayor of Edinburg:
Edinburg Mayor Omar Ochoa
“I have been very excited about hearing the results. They (MHM/Blue Zones) reached out to me literally the first week I was in office. I saw the email come in. I had already read the books. I had already seen the Netflix documentaries, so I knew all about Blue Zones. And being out there and telling people, encouraging them, active lifestyles, healthy lifestyles. I knew that this could be a tremendous advantage and resource for the city of Edinburg if we could just convince them that we are the specific target type of community that they want to help.”
“I’m ready. I am looking forward to the assessment results. I’m looking forward to a great partnership. I’m going to say it already. We are ready, so I can’t wait for this partnership so that we can progress forward the lifestyle and to normalize health here in the city of Edinburg and in the Rio Grande Valley. I’m stealing that line from Danny (Dan Buettner, Jr.) because Jamie is right. We did go out for a run this morning and we talked about all manners of things. Now, if you’re feeling left out because you did not join us this morning for our run at 7 a.m. at Edinburg Municipal Park, don’t worry. We actually recorded it, a bulk of it, 20 minutes, where we were on a selfie stick while we were running, talking about all kinds of things in the City of Edinburg, the Rio Grande Valley, and Blue Zones. It’s going to be posted pretty soon on my social media pages. I’m going to share it with Danny. He can do whatever he wants with it after that.”
“But he also did commit that every time he comes back down, we’re going to try to do this again. So, stay tuned. If you all can join us in the future, we would love to have you.”
“Thank you to Methodist Health Ministries for sponsoring this, for bringing this down, this wonderful initiative, and thank you to the Blue Zones for giving us the level of attention that our community is absolutely 100 percent ready for. We are very excited about it. Thank you.”
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