Sitka Health Summit dinner tickets on sale through May 9

SITKA - Tickets for the second annual Sitka Health Summit's May 14 community dinner need to be purchased by Friday, May 9.

The community dinner takes place at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, May 14, at the Hames Athletic and Wellness Center. The halibut dinner costs $5, and tickets are available at six locations around town - Old Harbor Books, White's Pharmacy, Hames Athletic and Wellness Center, Murray Pacific, Spenard Builders Supply and the Sitka Tribe of Alaska main office building. Tickets need to be purchased early to insure enough food is available.

At the dinner, Dan Burden, a nationally known expert on building healthier communities, will give a keynote address about "What Makes a Healthy Community." There also will be a report about the state of Sitka's health, a progress report on the four main goals from the inaugural Sitka Health Summit, and community awards for individuals and groups in Sitka who serve as health role models and wellness champions.

Burden is the executive director of Walkable Communities Inc., a principal and senior urban design planner for the firm Glatting Jackson Kercher Anglin, a founder of Bikecentennial Inc. (now called the Adventure Cycling Association), a former national advisory board member of the Active Living By Design program and a former National Geographic photographer who led a cycling expedition from Alaska to the Andes in the 1970s.

Sitka residents also are invited to participate in the Next Steps: Community Planning Session, which takes place from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Thursday, May 15. This event is open to all interested Sitka community members, and it is an opportunity to help set Sitka's health goals for 2008-'09 and develop an action plan for meeting those goals.

The Sitka Health Summit is brought to you by Sitka Community Hospital, the SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium and the Steps to a Healthier Southeast Alaska program. The Summit's vision is "to serve our great state as a model for community wellness by creating a healthy community where all Sitkans strive for and enjoy a high quality of life." For more information about the summit, contact Grace Brooks at 907-966-8865 or grace.brooks@searhc.org, or go to our Web site at www.sitkahealthsummit.org.