Kalona’s Farmer’s Market and Christmas in Kalona events provide area businesses with an exceptional opportunity to meet residents and encourage their patronage.  

For Dr. Chris Grier of Bright Futures Chiropractic, setting up booths at both events last year proved to be valuable experiences that made him recognize the importance of the Kalona Area Chamber of Commerce, which plays a leadership role in special events and community initiatives like these.

On Jan. 5, members of the chamber welcomed Bright Futures Chiropractic back into the fold with the presentation of a plaque.  The business had been a member previously but let its membership lapse.

“We were vendors at the farmer’s market three times this year.  We supported it financially as well, as one of the sponsors of the farmer’s market,” Dr. Grier said.  “It’s a good opportunity for us to get around and meet people, get downtown, and have people stop by and see what we’re about.”

“Oftentimes people don’t know how chiropractic could benefit them until they have an experience talking with a chiropractor,” Dr. Grier continued.  “Public knowledge of chiropractic is very, very limited, whereas what we do is very expansive.”

Athletes find chiropractic especially useful for avoiding and resolving pain issues.  

“We have a lot of the high school athletes come to us, and then certainly adult athletes, people who run and work out in various other ways,” Dr. Grier said.  “We’ve got quite an athletic background on our team as well.  I was a Division I basketball player.  Dr. Ryan is a competitive powerlifter.  Mike is a competitive MMA fighter.  And Randy is a personal trainer.”

Children benefit from chiropractic treatment as well.

“One of my real passions in practice is pediatric practice,” Dr. Grier said.  “Our idea is that if we can help people grow up healthy and develop optimally, then there will be a lot less need to react to bad things that have happened when they’re adults.”

Dr. Grier notes that most of our health care system is set up to react to health problems when they arise, rather than prevent them.  He would like to see that change, and even spent the last 12 years on the Washington County Board of Health trying to affect that change.  He also coaches other chiropractors on how to practice a proactive philosophy.

“When you deliver chiropractic in a proactive way, that opens it up to seeing babies, seeing toddlers, seeing youth and athletes, and then, of course, seeing adults because they’re utilizing chiropractic as part of a healthy lifestyle,” he says.

Bright Futures Chiropractic sees people who work in all occupations, from those with physical jobs such as construction work to those with sedentary jobs working in front of computers, come in for weekly or bimonthly visits.  

“When they arrive, we’re doing really three things,” Dr. Grier said.  “We’re checking their spine for subluxation [a partial dislocation or slight misalignment of the vertebrae].  We’re adjusting very specifically where they need that, so their nervous systems are working as well as possible.  The third thing is, we’re educating every visit.  We educate because they walk out these doors and all they hear is the standard American narrative of health care, which is really sickness care.  We know that it’s a big job to educate people on.  It’s actually the reality of how to be healthy instead of how to be not sick or not injured.”