Stewardship and Investment in Community Wellbeing: A note from the Facilitator
Hello, my name is Jessie Wilcox, I am the Community Health Coordinator at Livingston HealthCare and I have had the honor of facilitating LiveWell49 since it’s inception in 2017. It was then, that a group of community leaders, with a passion for making Park County the best place to live for all residents, approached the Park County Community Foundation for funding toward a collective impact initiative they coined LiveWell49. Collective impact is an intentional way of working collaboratively, sharing information for the purpose of solving a complex problem at the systems level.
The heart and soul of the LiveWell49 Coalition lies with the idea that to solve complex problems, doing it together is more successful than if a single organization/nonprofit were to approach the same problem(s) on their own. LiveWell49 has many components of a backbone organization within the collective impact framework and has been doing the work of networking, collaborating, connecting and creating efficiencies across multiple sectors and partners in Park County. It’s not always the glamorous work, the administrative side of connecting a community.
LiveWell49 acts as the humble servant, bringing leaders, stakeholders, the doer’s of the community together, every month, for over 4 years providing the space for building relationships and generating the awareness of all the resources, gaps, needs and solutions to Park County’s most pressing health needs. LiveWell49 is providing stewardship and investment in community wellbeing and I am so thankful to be a part of the team!
Meet the rest of the LiveWell49 Team:
Hannah Larson
Hannah joined LiveWell49 in the summer of 2021 as a Community Health Assistant for Livingston HealthCare. A native of St. Louis, Hannah has lived in Montana for the past seven years. In this time, she has familiarized herself with the unique challenges rural communities face and has become increasingly interested in addressing these issues with her life’s work.
Prior to coming to LiveWell49 Hannah worked with The Human Resource Development Council and Montana INBRE where she performed meaningful research in support of improving emergency food management systems for rural Montana. She went on to work for The Food and Health Lab at Montana State University (MSU) where she realized her passion for taking a scientific and data driven approach to solving community problems. She holds a BS in Food and Nutrition Science and is currently working on obtaining a MS in Dietetics from MSU.
If you’d like to contact Hannah directly please email her at Hannah.larson@livhc.org
Laurie bishop
Laurie joined LiveWell49 as a Community Health Assistant in the summer of 2022. Laurie came to Livingston in 1996, originally owning a downtown bike shop with her husband Storrs. Since then, Laurie has gone on to build extensive experience with the non-profit community in Livingston, with a particular career focus on youth development.
Laurie is excited to work back in Park County after seven years working statewide, most recently as the Director of Montana Afterschool Alliance (MTAA) providing support and advocacy for Montana’s out-of-school time sector. Prior to MTAA, Laurie worked with communities across the state supporting the Graduation Matters Montana (GMM) initiative at the Office of Public Instruction. GMM implemented a collective impact model to improve high school graduation rates and to help communities link systems of care in communities with both GMM and a federal preschool development grant. Laurie will lean on this experience to support LiveWell49’s emerging collective impact work to strengthen the youth mental health support system in Park County.
If you’d like to contact Laurie directly please email her at laurie.bishop@livhc.org.
