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Sumter County On The Move! On April 30 and May 7, county residents were invited to discover and celebrate local parks in six communities as part of Sumter County On The Move!, the prelude to the USC Prevention Research Center/SCAL core research project walking intervention. Nearly 700 people turned out for the celebrations at the Rembert-Rafting Creek Community Center, Wedgefield Community Park, Cherryvale Community Center, Ebenezer Community Center, VIM Park and Salterstown Park.
"Diabetes is No Sweet Thing!" Project Sumter County Active Lifestyles (SCAL) is one of three community coalitions in the Carolinas to receive a one-year grant from REACH US: SEA-CEED (Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health United States: South-Eastern African American Center of Excellence to Eliminate Disparities), based at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) College of Nursing, to expand their work to decrease disparities for African Americans at risk for and with diabetes. SCAL’s partners in its grant project are the Rembert Area Community Coalition, Delaine-Wedgefield Community Coalition, Carolina Diabetes and Kidney Center, and the University of South Carolina Prevention Research Center. SCAL's project, called Diabetes is No Sweet Thing!, is a diabetes awareness and education campaign for African American adults living in Rembert and Wedgefield. SCAL chose these two particular communities in Sumter County because of the high number of African Americans, higher poverty rate than that of the county as a whole, and the fact that these communities are 100% rural and lack local healthcare facilities, doctor’s offices, pharmacies and grocery stores. Besides lifestyle-related risk factors (like poor diet, physical inactivity and obesity), minority race/ethnicity, low income and lack of access to adequate healthcare increase the risk for diabetes. Additionally, African Americans are more likely to have poorly controlled diabetes. The purpose of the Diabetes is No Sweet Thing! project is to let people know that diabetes is a serious disease—especially in the African American population— but one that can be prevented and controlled. We want people to be informed about the things that increase their diabetes risk and simple lifestyle changes they can adopt to help them prevent or better manage diabetes. Rembert and Wedgefield African American
residents will participate with project staff to develop the campaign’s educational messages so that they will be relevant to the community.
Through the Rembert Area Community Coalition and the Delaine-Wedgefield Community Coalition, focus groups were conducted to determine what residents
already know about diabetes, how to make African American people more aware of diabetes and how to convince them that diabetes can be prevented
and controlled with a healthy lifestyle. The
focus group data are being used to create the campaign’s educational materials that will be distributed later this year in African American
churches in those communities. REACH US: SEA-CEED works with community coalitions to eliminate health disparities related to diabetes prevention and control by reducing risks and preventing complications of diabetes in African Americans. The program’s grants to community coalitions, such as SCAL, help build the capacity within the affected community and create self-sustaining, community-based partnerships that will continue to decrease health disparities and improve quality of life. Community Advocacy and Leadership Program In January 2011, seven representatives of the Broad Street Community Faith Warriors,
Rembert Area Community Coalition and Salterstown Community Center (all in Sumter County) successfully graduated from Round 1 of the USC
PRC/SCAL Community Advocacy and Leadership Program (CALP). They
participated in eight monthly training workshops from May to December 2010. Through these eight workshops and several community assignments,
CALP participants learned about leadership, team building, grant writing, community health development and community assessment, cultural
competence, group and meeting facilitation, conflict resolution, basic communication, political and media advocacy, strategic planning,
and resources and technology. They
are now better-equipped with knowledge and skills to continue making positive changes in their local communities to promote health and
quality of life. As one CALP graduate has stated, "(CALP has) truly empowered me more to be active for the community."
Because the focus groups that were conducted with residents of Broad Street, Dalzell, Rembert, Wedgefield and Salterstown revealed that many of them are unaware of the parks and walking tracks located in their own communities that were built with grant funds from the USC PRC/SCAL Community Mini-Grant Program, a "Sumter County parks, playgrounds & walking tracks awareness campaign" will take place in April and May 2011 to familiarize residents with these facilities. Our hope is that, once people are aware of them, they will use them to get more physically active.
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