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Reader Contribution By Jay Walljasper .
Photo by Fotolia/pootsonnaja
Tapping the power of place to keep us all healthy.
One number stands above all others as the best indicator of good health. It’s not your blood pressure, cholesterol level, average daily calories or even the age at which your grandparents die. It’s your zip code.
This fact has sent shockwaves across the county. The chief aspiration of American democracy is that everyone deserves an equal opportunity for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Yet medical evidence shows that people living in disadvantaged neighborhoods face greater health and mortality risks.
Ron Simms, long-time owner of The Trading Post, “saw something and made it happen.” That’s how his oldest daughter, Rhonda Reid, remembers the Loring, Ont., native who died March 9. He was 82. Simms and his wife, Carol, owned the Great Northern Road business for 30 years before selling about 10 years ago. The Frontier Village, to the rear of The Trading Post, was built by the couple on land that was bush circa 1990. That was one of about five expansions at the business during the couple’s three-decade long ownership. Reid and her sisters Trina Hemstead and Dani Simms-Dowding all worked at the family business. They lived on site, too.