The Working on Wellness Environments team would like to extend our best wishes to our own Kelsey Coats. As an Extension Assistant of Program Outreach PSE, Kelsey has been involved in every aspect of the WOW-E project from providing technical assistance for community planning efforts, logistical support for site visits and workshops, to contributing to the communication efforts.
Kelsey began her career with Texas A&M Agrilife Extension as a student worker with the Urban and Municipal Parks program, where she excelled in this role for a year and half. After graduating, Kelsey transitioned into a full-time role with WOW-E and Texas A&M Ag
rilife Extension’s Urban and Municipal Parks Program. Kelsey’s background and experience in Recreation, Park, and Tourism Sciences and her previous work in community planning, allowed her to succeed as part of the physical activity subject matter expert team, as well as the communications team.
When the RFA process was introduced, Kelsey had a key role in guiding communities through readiness assessments, asset identification, and setting clear goals and action steps. As projects progressed into planning phases, Kelsey’s involvement included leading walking audits in Rio Grande City and Sierra Blanca, TX, planning pop-ups with the downtown Rio Grande City, TX group, planning story walks with the Rio Grande City Library in Rio Grande City, TX, and guiding all groups through various site inventories. Additionally, Kelsey shared these best practices with other communit
y leaders at two state conference presentations and in her article for NRPA (see below).
Instrumental to the communications team, Kelsey has been involved with social media, newsletter and blog creation, and has taken lead in creating videos that highlight the dedicated community champions of our 4 counties. With strong writing skills and a bird’s eye view of best practices, Kelsey was invited to write an article for the National Recreation and Park Association magazine, where she highlighted community engagement in relation to the WOW-E project. Kelsey participated in a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention panel, where she was invited to speak about the communication efforts of WOW-E and our local coalitions who are active followers of the communication pieces.
Kelsey’s favorite part of being in this role is working with a multidisciplinary team. She 
enjoys looking at issues from a health standpoint. She also enjoys getting to know our four counties and seeing local groups get excited about making change in their counties.
As for her steps, Kelsey will be attending Cornell University in Ithaca, New York where she will be pursuing a master of Regional Planning. She is excited to not only approach planning with her background in parks, but with health in mind.
The WOW-E team would like to thank Kelsey for her dedicated contributions to WOW-E. While we will not see her as much, we are looking forward to continue working with her on a part-time basis.