Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Joplin City Council informal meeting for Monday, April the 6th, 2026.

We have two items on the agenda this evening, and we will start with workside wellness update.

Hello, Mr.

Talkin.

Good evening.

How are you, sir?

Wonderful.

Good.

I'd like to just make a quick introduction and then I'll step back here.

So I'd like to introduce uh Megan Salba.

She's our work site wellness coordinator.

You come on board January of 24, correct?

So you come on board January of 2024 and works under a grant right now with the uh health department.

And so with that, I'll hand it over to Megan.

Good evening, Megan.

Good evening.

Lower this a little bit since I am a little shorter.

There we go.

Um so as Ryan said, I'm Megan Sobaum, the wellness coordinator for the city of Joplin.

And I'm gonna give you guys a brief overview of our work site wellness program.

Uh to begin, I just want to highlight some of the events that we've had the last few years.

So we have our walk-in group and we retunly we routinely do this uh a few times a week.

We have our blood pressure checks.

We do that um every February in honor of Heart Health Month, and then we have our health fair and our gym grain reopening, both of those events.

I will get more into here in just a bit.

And then we've also had a logo makeover thanks to our marketing and communications department.

Uh the city's commitment to um creating a healthier workplace did not begin with the of with my position as the wellness coordinator.

In fact, these efforts actually began back in 2010 when the city first introduced several key initiatives and long-term strategies that were aimed at improving employee health while also managing rising health care costs.

Um and out of those um efforts was the formation of the insurance employee committee.

Um it was more commonly known as the HealthNets Committee, and then since since we rebranded, we now call it the Wellness Works Committee.

So just a little flow of name change, but um building onto those ongoing efforts, the city originally started.

We were awarded the LPHA infrastructure grant that was help um designed to help strengthen the public workforce.

So that grant is what made it um as an option to create my position as the wellness coordinator.

And however, that grant funding it will conclude at the end of this fiscal year.

But around the nation and regionally, many municipalities and organizations are now investing into a dedicated uh wellness role showing the significance of this position.

So it's first important to understand why wellness um why wellness program is so valuable.

It's much more than just an employee perk, it's really an initiative that supports both the city and the employees because a lot of our wellness initiatives they can lead to uh lower health care costs that are covered by the city, decrease absenteeism, promoting a stronger recruitment and retention, and really just creating a more positive and productive work environment.

Uh it's imperative to understand that our work uh program does not just it's not just a focus on individual health, but uh more as a focus for our city preparedness.

Um, our wellness initiatives can lead to healthy behaviors and preventative care within our employees that show us Joplin as an example that we don't only have dedication to our employees but also to the public that we serve.

The uh wellness works award is an award that we got from Missouri Council of Activity and Nutrition.

This is an award that uh recognizes our efforts in supporting um and investing in our workplace environments and showing that we support healthy behaviors.

We originally applied for this in 2001 and we achieved the bronze level.

We reapplied in 2024 and we achieved the gold level.

And this year we're gonna be in pursuit of that highest level, which is the platinum level.

Jumping back to 2024.

That year I offered 45 health and wellness events, and we had a total participation of 283.

A little overview of some of the events we had that year was yoga walking group, which we routinely still do, and then we had gym orientation that was led by a member of um Freeman Sports Medicine, and then COJ Bingo.

And 2025, I had 46 wellness events offered, and we had a higher participation rate of 309.

Um a couple of events we had that year was Park Scavenger Hunt, um, happiness challenge, and then my personal favorite, as you can see pictured there, it was the Speak Your Mind Mental Health Ice Bucket Challenge.

Um of our greatest perks to be offered to our employees is our employee fitness center.

When I first began working here, I was gaining feedback from employees to see how can we make improvements to this space, what equipment they would like to see added.

So I took that feedback.

We added over 10 new pieces of equipment into the gym.

And so to highlight those improvements, I had a gym grand reopening event.

So this gave employees the option to tour the new um, like check out all of our new equipment, uh, ask any questions about our wellness program and really get employees that aren't utilizing this space to come by and check it out.

So our newsletter previously, I would make a um monthly wellness newsletter, and I would send that out to employees through email, and then I would also print it out and deliver it to different city departments and buildings.

But now with the employee intranet, we now have a one-stop shop where you can get all of your wellness content.

So uh with the internet, we now have you can get all of your wellness resources, get all of our monthly updates and know about all upcoming events that we have planned.

Our EAP topics.

So our EAP program would give us five hours annually of free training, and then they would facilitate these trainings for us.