The city of Chandler recently received awards that it states, in a news release, recognize the city's commitment to employee and community health initiatives.

The Arizona Department of Health Services awarded the city with a 2025 Healthy Arizona Worksite Platinum Award, while Vitalant presented the city with its "Impact" and "Valentines for Life" awards.

Mayor Kevin Hartke had Chandler human resources manager Fernanda Acurio and Lisa Marineri, the city’s employee wellness and engagement coordinator, at a Sept. 18 City Council meeting to accept the awards. 

The Healthy Arizona Worksite Award recognizes businesses that are making efforts to positively affect the health and well-being of employees, their families, and their community through evidence-based worksite health initiatives and promising programs, the release states.

Some of the categories that the award is judged include health programs offered to employees such as health screenings, physical activity programs, stress management and more.

One of the city’s highest-scoring categories was in organizational support of wellness in the workplace, the release states.

A Platinum Level Award is awarded to businesses making an impact both within and beyond their walls. Platinum level awardees have demonstrated data-driven programming and are leveraging cross-sector collaborations or partnerships improving the health, well-being and equity of their community.

The example provided for judging was the engagement of employees in the For Our City Day and Arbor Day events.

The For Our City Day event brings people together to build community and neighborhood pride. Volunteers paint homes, weed yards and clean up neighborhoods that are at risk of decline.

For Arbor Day, the city’s Parks, Employee Wellness, Chandler Library, Urban Forestry and Solid Waste & Recycling teams came together. They worked to express the importance and benefits of trees while also ensuring the growth of a diverse and healthy tree canopy for future generations by giving away free five-gallon native species trees.

The Vitalant Impact award is the most prestigious and difficult award to earn, the release states, signifying outstanding leadership in blood drive coordination. This award is given to coordinators and organizations that work above and beyond to encourage participation in their blood drives and set the standards for others to follow.

The city also received the gold-level "Valentines for Life" Award. This award was established to recognize coordinators and organizations that reach significant milestones in recruiting blood donors through education and inspiration, the release states.

The city has four drives annually, collects at least 100 blood components annually and achieves 90% or more of its total blood-drive goal.

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