If you have seen me lately, you may have noticed I look different. …well over the last 2 years I managed to lose more than 50 lbs.! Why? I wanted to get in shape, and it worked!  When doing my annual executive physical the results were outstanding, on every level, all the blood values, fitness, blood pressure, heart rate et al. The Doctor said: whatever you do, just continue this way.

Health is the most important thing you could wish for in your entire live. With physical and mental health, you can conquer the world.

And that is what we want for the Avalon Park communities; to become the healthiest communities in Florida.

5 years ago, I was invited by APG’s Chief Human Resource officer Mari Robles, to attend a dinner given by AdventHealth with about 25 finalists in line to win a $150,000 grant. AdventHealth was looking for a company who could be made the healthiest company in Central Florida. I am proud to say that APG won the award and Advent started right away their program. It was great, from running or walking a 5K together to many lifestyle lessons and medical workshops.  We worked as together as a company with about 200 employees on getting healthy. And WOW, we did, from losing weight, to getting in shape, some people quit smoking and people reversed diabetes.

We were told that one of the determining factors of being awarded the grant, was that our goal was to take the principles learned in the process and extend them to the communities that we build.  And since we did that 3-year program, we thought about how to get the entire community to embrace it.  And once again our great partner, AdventHealth introduced us to a great opportunity.  This time the Avalon Park Orlando community was selected to do a pilot community health program. The pilot program begins this month with 30 participants, with the goal to continue adding additional participants at different benchmarks.  We look forward to sharing more details with you on this fantastic program as it develops for the Avalon Park Wesley Chapel community.

Our goal remains to make Avalon Park Wesley Chapel one of the healthiest communities in Central Florida.

Advent Health and APG have been partners and friends for a long time. I am serving on their main Orlando Board since 2006, and our organizations have collaborated on many partnerships over the past 20+ years. Some of those include that AdventHealth is a tenant in the Keith A. Ewing Medical Office Building, Encore at Avalon Park Assisted Living and Memory Care and Advent Health have an affiliation agreement, and AdventHealth is a key sponsor to many Avalon Park events. Additionally, AdventHealth and APG are founding partners of the UCF Medical School in Lake Nona, and so it goes on and on. True friends and great partners!

I think to start 2023 with a goal like becoming the healthiest community in Central Florida, truly will be life changing for many, it definitely was for me when I went on to lose a quarter of my (excess) weight.

Happy New Year Avalon Park!

Beat Kahli