Annual Women 4 Wellness fair: a healthy dose of fun

PABLO — Members of the SKC Prevention Task Force once again joined forces with local vendors and volunteers to present the third annual Women 4 Wellness Health Fair: an event that entertains, educates and even saves lives.

“I thought it went awesome!” said Niki Graham, director of the task force and co-organizer of this year’s fair, an all-day affair held last Thursday at the Joe McDonald Health and Fitness Center in Pablo.

“We didn’t expect to have folks lined up to get through the door,” Graham said. “A lot of tests were done.”

Those tests, some of which save lives through early disease detection, continue to be the primary focus of the fair.

Graham said that at least 83 people got tested for HIV, 490 for diabetes and 195 for bone density problems. She said she does not yet have final numbers for other tests, including EKGs and breast exams, but she expects that they will be comparably impressive.

A few weeks before this year’s fair, Graham said she would be pleased to see 1,000 people show up to the event. Much to her surprise, by the day of the fair over 1,000 people had already pre-registered online.

And throughout the day, Thursday, over 1,200 community members stopped by the health center, making this year’s Women 4 Wellness the most highly attended fair yet.

Graham attributes the event’s increasing success to word-of-mouth promotion.

“Our best advocates and promoters are the ones who’ve attended, then they come again the next year and maybe they bring their friends,” she said. “It’s kind of like dominoes.”

While the event is health focused, it’s organized to be fun and welcoming to everyone in the community — female and male, old and young.

This year 126 colorful vendors packed into the entryway and the floor of the fitness center; there were so many options and things to look at that, according to Graham, some event-goers said they felt overwhelmed.

One attraction, however, was nearly impossible to miss: the pink, mechanical bull available to anyone brave enough to jump on and attempt a ride.

“There was a lot of fun to be had,” Graham laughed. “I think that’s good, we need that too.”

For more information on the Women 4 Wellness health fair and the SKC prevention task force visit http://prevention.skc.edu/?q=node/5