(KAIR)--Live Well, Live Atchison, a healthy living initiative created by community leaders to promote healthy habits in the county, hosted an event Friday morning featuring a speaker from a simliar organization in Allen County.

Jeff Schuele, who is part of the Communications and Resource Team for the group, says that they have heard from various community forums that they would like to have a keynote speaker brought in on an annual basis, and hosting David Tolen, Executive Director of Thrive Allen County, is part of that plan. Schuele explains that Thrive Allen County “Is just like Live Well, Live Atchison, only they are about six or seven years ahead in the process”.  

Schuele adds that Tolen can really be a benefit to the organization and to Atchison as a whole. He says they belive that Tolen can bring a lot of tangible things. Allen County has had worse health rankings than Atchison, yet they are still ahead of Atchison in quality of life.

Tolen says that he is happy to share some of the methods that worked for Allen County in hopes that Atchison County can benefit in the long run. He says that “Allen and Atchison counties share a lot of same demographics, advantages, and challenges”. He shared what his county has been doing to turn things around, and how some of those lessons cound perhaps be applied to Atchison...It's about the importance of investing in quality of life including health, wellness, recreation, and education, and trying to get more people engaged in the effort to make the community thrive”.

Live Well, Live Atchison was formed in 2011 to reverse poor county health ratings released in 2005. Atchison County ranked last out of 105 counties.