GrowSmart Maine 2019 Summit focus is on building healthy communities
Courtesy / GrowSmart Maine
A map shows the locations of the city experiences portion of Thursday's GrowSmart Maine annual summit, which will be held at the Pepperell Mill in Biddeford.
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The connection between healthy residents and the impact on the community will be the theme when GrowSmart Maine holds its annual summit Thursday.
More than 200 have registered for the day-long conference, said Nancy Smith, executive director of GrowSmart Maine.
The theme this year is "Smart Growth Builds Wellness" and Smith said that Thursday's programs focus on "making direct connections between smart growth strategies an wellness of individuals," in both large and small-scale ways.
Guest speakers are Zoe Reich Margarites, vice presient of market solutions at the International Well Building Institute an Christopher Coes, vice presient of land use and development, Smart Growth America.
They will speak on renewed understanding and research on the importance of physical, mental and social well-being, emphasizing the connection between personal, community and planet health and land use planning, and bridging the connections for Maine people and communities.
"By collaborating we can start to address how environments are structured at a personal, community and worldwide scale to make the places we live healthy, prosperous, inclusive and resilient," the event's website says.
The event is held in different communities around the state every year, and the last time the summit was in Biddeford, in 2015, the downtown revitalization was just getting rolling.
Saco is also a host, the first time two cities have shared duties.
Smith said the afternoon "city experience" program will include opportunities to see both cities. The program, added in 2015, allows those attending to get out into the community.
"We started doing that because of a lot of discussion around the fact people go to a conference in a different city, but then they never get to see the city," she said. "It gives people a chance to do that, and the city a chance to show off, too."
The city experiences Thursday will include one on the riverwalk that connects the two cities, which are divided by the Saco River; Biddeford's food eco-system, the Pepperell Mill’s "journey to solar energy," a cultural tour of Biddeford that focuses on growing community through the arts; downtown Saco's development projects; and how to make zoning more effective.
The conference also has morning break-out sessions and an afternoon discussion of "Journalism, Truth and Healthy Communities," by Judith Meyer, executive director of the Sun Journal, Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel newspapers.
The conference ends with the annual Maine Smart Growth Awards.
Registration can be completed at the conference, which begins at 8:30 a.m., Smith said.
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