Thursday, July 1, 2010

Postels Community Health Park Celebrates a Decade

Wow! For 10 years now, Postels Community Health Park has been helping to meet the needs of the East Central Iowa. At every major advancement of GRMC, you can see philanthropy at work. Postels Community Health Park is no exception.

About 11 years ago, the Postels and Heimsoth families donated their building in the center of Grinnell to the hospital. The large building has an interesting history. Prior to its life as a health park, the Postels and Heimsoths used it to operate their very successful Budweiser distributing company. The facility began life at the turn of the century (the last century that is) as a hotel across the street from Central Park and a block away from the train depot. The two-story building really has been an important fixture in Grinnell’s history.

Today, 10 years after the Postels and Heimsoths turned this special building over to GRMC, the health park is a centerpiece of our outreach program. The three fundamental functions at the facility are: a hemodialysis center (provided by the University of Iowa), the Galaxy Youth Center, and GRMC’s integrated health center.

The dialysis center has been vitally important to meeting the needs of our diabetic patients closer to home. The Galaxy continues to grow and maintain a place for our youth to enjoy structured social and learning time. The integrated health center offers our community access to state-of-the-art massage therapy, acupuncture, physical therapy, chiropractic, and other holistic therapies.

GRMC has been a recognized leader in integrated health. We offer other community hospitals a model for blending the best in modern and complementary therapies for optimal healing.

We owe many thanks to the Postels and Heimsoth families for their generosity and kindness in the donation of their building so we could expand our mission in such an innovative and necessary way. I can only imagine what the next 10 years will bring as we continue to find creative ways to use this building for health improvement!

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