In post-pandemic America, folks are working harder than ever in exchange for lesser value. The dollar does not go as far, everything costs more and, for many, self-care is nonexistent. It’s no wonder that essential workers are rapidly feeling burned out. Luckily, there are people in our very community who care about every person thriving, and not just physically but spiritually.
The Center for Human Flourishing (TCfHF), based in Carbondale, is committed to spiritual thriving. In 2021, TCfHF Co-Founder and Board Chair Rita Marsh gathered community leaders to conduct strategic planning. Together they explored how the organization can most positively be impactful. Dan Richardson, Carbondale’s mayor at the time, illuminated one bottomline for Gwen Garcelon, community resiliency specialist and TCfHF ally:
“Our frontline workers in the Roaring Fork Valley need support.”
Richardson was talking about our teachers, police officers, fire fighters, therapists and mental health workers. In other words, our caretakers. They are steeped in trauma, Marsh and Garcelon told The Sopris Sun. Accordingly, these dynamite women are creating an online Community Wellness Portal to unite holistic health practitioners with people who need their services but can’t afford them.
“The acute and chronic issue that we’re dealing with as a society and a community is stress,” said Marsh, “and not to be critical, but there’s not a lot in the allopathic approach to help.” By “allopathic” she referred to the treatment of symptoms rather than causes of illness. “I feel people who are in the complementary health business are more attuned to helping people have life balance.”
Marsh and Garcelon reflected on how people once lived in tribes where the wellness of the whole was everyone’s responsibility. Medicine people were likewise valued and reciprocated with all of their needs met. Today, by contrast, we are colonized and fractured. Most families and individuals struggle alone to survive and economic realities define our choices.
The Community Wellness Portal aims to restore a greater sense of caring for one another. Not only will frontline workers receive access to holistic treatments not often included in traditional workplace wellness programs, healing practitioners can count on clients. To accomplish this, TCfHF will leverage relationships built over years with numerous integral health practitioners.
“Integral,” “complementary” and “holistic” describe an approach to wellness where spirit is valued the same as the physical/material. Marsh and Garcelon are rallying on the bandwagon of large companies promoting complementary health practices such as nutrition, mindfulness and physical movement, where allopathic practices were once the norm. Garcelon described this as “a cultural shift toward taking responsibility for our connection to each other and our purpose.”
The project has several phases. Currently, TCfHF has executed Phase One: a GoFundMe campaign to raise $5,000 to facilitate the necessary groundwork. This includes interviewing community collaborators to find programs already providing wellness services to employees, compiling education for employers to join the movement and refining a business model to sustainably fund the Portal.
Marsh excitedly stated that other organizations are also seeking to “build an integrated health system to achieve optimal health for all the people who live in the West Mountain Region.” She pointed to the Valley Health Alliance, Aspen Community Foundation and West Mountain Regional Health Alliance as some of the alliances prospected to help make the Portal happen.
Phase Two will involve identifying the right platform to streamline the Portal’s purpose. As stated on their website, “TCfHF seeks to create a Community Wellness Portal that is easy to use, educates users on the most appropriate modalities, is thoroughly vetted through TCfHF’s network, is confidential, and offers company membership and other community funding options to reduce costs to users.”
To support this endeavor, visit www.gofund.me/57a99ac2 where you can learn more and donate to the cause.