When Neticia Blunt-Waldron was 17, her grandmother died of a massive heart attack two days before her 60th birthday. That loss pushed Blunt-Waldron into a career in healthcare and, eventually, into building a city-backed public health pilot aimed at the Evanston neighborhoods where chronic illness hits hardest.

The Pathway to Wellness program, backed by $400,000 in City of Evanston funding, will serve low-income residents living with hypertension in the Second, Fifth, and Eighth Wards. The pilot offers fitness classes, nutrition coaching, and clinical monitoring. It is "nearing implementation," according to an Evanston Roundtable report published Wednesday, July 8.

Blunt-Waldron designed the program and will administer it through her nonprofit, Whole Pathways to Wellness, which she founded in 2022. The nonprofit operates out of The AUX, a 12,000-square-foot wellness collective at 2223 Washington St. owned by Black women and housing fitness, clinical care, mental health therapy, and food-access services under one roof.

"My work in remote patient monitoring focuses on marginalized communities, because I was part of a family that was impacted by chronic illness," Blunt-Waldron told the Roundtable in a 2024 profile. "That experience ultimately led me to a career in health care."

Blunt-Waldron spent more than ten years as a healthcare administrator at Endeavor Health, where her work centered on remote monitoring for underserved populations. She started teaching fitness classes at Fleetwood Jourdain Community Center in 2021, then founded Whole Woman Fitness, which moved to The AUX in July 2025.

The Pathway to Wellness program uses that same remote patient monitoring technology alongside in-person interventions. It is the first time the city has funded a hypertension-focused pilot at this scale in specific wards.

The Evanston Health Advisory Council and the City Council's Human Services Committee have both been involved in the program's development, according to the Roundtable's reporting. No enrollment date or specific launch timeline has been publicly announced.

Blunt-Waldron's nonprofit arm also runs mobile health clinics and partners with major medical institutions, according to a July 2025 Roundtable report on the organization's move to The AUX. The program's next public milestone will be its formal launch in the three targeted wards.