Meleah Follen
Network Impact Director, Healthy Community Initiative
meleah@healthycommunityinitiative.org
Meleah Follen has been with HCI since 2014 but is new to the Rice County Chemical and Mental Health Coalition Team. She attended the University of Notre Dame, where she received a bachelor’s degree in business administration, and returned to school to pursue a career in nursing, receiving her bachelor’s of science in nursing from Loyola University Chicago. Meleah brings this unique background to the Coalition and her work as the staff support for the Northfield Alliance for Substance Abuse Prevention (N-ASAP).
Working with N-ASAP is a natural extension on her primary work with HCI as the Network Impact Director. Her work in this role is centered on ensuring youth voice is represented throughout the community and that all who want to pursue higher education have the resources to do so. The primary programs she works with are Youth on Boards, YouthBank, and the Northfield Community College Collaborative.
Joy Riggs
HCI Communications Coordinator
joy@healthycommunityinitiative.org
Joy Riggs started working for Healthy Community Initiative in March 2020 as a Communications Coordinator. Her responsibilities with the RCCMHC include writing and editing content for the bi-monthly e-newsletter and supporting a variety of Coalition communications projects.
Joy has a degree in news editorial journalism from Drake University, and she worked as a newspaper reporter in Indianapolis, Natchez (Miss.), Des Moines, and Northfield. Before taking the job with HCI, she worked as a freelance writer and editor for 25 years. She is the author of a nonfiction book, Crackerjack Bands and Hometown Boosters: The Story of a Minnesota Music Man (Nodin Press 2019).