In the past 15 years, the World Health Organization has designated only 58 places worldwide as “Safe Communities.” Lycoming County recently gained that elite designation. Being a Safe Community is much more than an empty designation. In the case of Lycoming County, some of the real-life efforts that led to the designation included: Workplace safety efforts by Lycoming Engines; sustaining partnerships between Susquehanna Health sports medicine and a senior center at the YMCA; the county’s flood warning system; Little League Baseball’s use and monitoring of worldwide injury data, and South Williamsport Police Department’s Project Lifesafer program for finding missing persons. In other words, the county gained the “Safe” designation based on real operations that make it safer than most communities every day. Countless other coordinated community efforts spearheaded by the Lycoming County Health Improvement Coalition gained the county the designation.