The Promethean Project is a non-profit wellness center, whose mission is to create a one stop shop for peoples’ physical, mental, and holistic health needs and goals. We started our work on this mission in early 2017, utilizing donated spaces from local churches, recovery centers, and recreation departments to offer mental health counseling, exercise/yoga classes, meditation/martial arts classes, nutritional counseling, and leadership programming. Over the years, we have continued to use donated space to make a difference within our community. Our current project is related to establishing a permanent brick and mortar wellness center, so that we can grow our community services and outreach, and provide a space for any, and all, to make progress on their health and wellness goals. We've found that it is hard for people to navigate the current health industry due to a lack of communication, planning, and education between the health resources, providers, and communities that are currently established. This leaves people feeling confused and isolated, and leads to a lack of follow through on health and wellness needs and goals. It creates a fractured system, in which individuals can fall through the gaps- creating health epidemics, increased isolation, and lack of opportunities for people with low incomes. We have seen this occur, at the local level, in the last five years, with the growth of the opioid epidemic. Springfield, alone, has seen the rates of deaths by OD double within the last 2 years, from 40 to 80 in 2018. It’s time to move towards a more community based/integrative model of health and wellness.
Our solution to this is simple- we are putting the community back into health and wellness. We have created a one stop shop non-profit wellness center that focuses on providing comprehensive case management and collaboration with health providers, as well as integrative alternative therapies. By creating this community, we are bringing clarity to those that were confused, community and sense of self to those that were isolated, and integration to systems that were fractured. The center will house mental health practitioners, holistic providers, case managers, personal trainers, health coaches, nutritional counselors, meditation practitioners, and much more. It will also function as an open gym to work on fitness and exercise goals (i.e. yoga classes, calisthenics, kettlebells, HIIT classes, etc.). We also are founding free programming for youth (The Brian Odiorne Youth Leadership Initiative), people in recovery (The Jared Kozlik Mentorship Initiative) and a Strengthening Healthy Families program. Our free programing is made to target populations of low income in an attempt to bridge the gaps created by inequality in health and wellness services to due to increasing cost and lack of insurance.