About Us
Florelle's ‘Ohana was created in memory of Florelle Darden Gwaltney. Florelle developed anorexia when she was an adolescent. The mental health field did not recognize this disease nor was there treatment for it at that time. She suffered with this disease for almost 40 years, and ultimately it was anorexia that caused her death.
During the last six years of her life, Florelle become part of a new community family on Kauai . The Gwaltney Family was so touched by the love and acceptance Florelle had been given that they wanted to give back to the Kauai community by founding a program addressing eating disorders - anorexia, bulimia, and obesity. The Kauai community members also showed their concern and support by donating over $3,000 to the program.
Florelle's ‘Ohana is a community-based, grass roots program that strives to improve physical and mental health by promoting positive body-image, improving self-esteem, and reducing risk for eating disorders such as anorexia, bulimia and obesity.
Florelle's ‘Ohana takes a very unique approach to a spectrum of eating and weight related disorders and creatively combines information from evidenced-based medical knowledge with community perspectives.
OUR SHORT TERM GOALS: To
create, implement, and evaluate a prevention
program for Kauai youth that will raise body-image
and self-esteem and encourage healthy lifestyles. We
will utilize a multidisciplinary community
advisory board to guide this program and
tailor it to best fit the needs of our community. A
successful prevention program will improve
quality of life, decrease eating disorders
and obesity, and ultimately save lives.
In addition to planning our youth health
promotion project, we are also actively trying
to raise awareness about eating disorders
and their scope here on Kauai. We
have provided many free educative sessions
for community members and professionals and
will continue as long as there is an expressed
need. We are also preparing a series
of free professional development workshops
that will be offered to teachers, coaches,
counselors and psychologists on Kauai.
OUR LONG TERM GOALS: Our
ultimate long term goal is to have a home,
a safe place, where people can come to receive
free services, education or simply talk story
with others who may share similar experiences. This
program will not be based on a medical model
with “patients” being treated
for “disease”. In
contrast, we utilize a holistic approach
to address each individual’s needs
in order to promote a healthier body, mind,
and spirit.
