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PRINCETON — Door prizes, a chance to detect and beat colon cancer, information about diabetes and assessing one’s risk of a heart attack were all part of a new health fair that came Friday to Mercer County.
The new Community Health Fair opened its door early Friday morning at the Karen Preservati Center off Stafford Drive. Princeton Rotarians greeted guests as they arrived and gave out tickets for door prizes. Visitors who visited each of the fair’s agencies filled out a card that qualified them for prize drawings.
Ed and Betty Sheridan of Princeton dropped their entry card into a basket so they could win a door prize. They had visited each agency offering health care information.
“I’m incredibly impressed,” Ed Sheridan said. “I can’t imagine they missed anything except my left toe.”
“This is really nice,” Betty added. “I’m glad we’ve got something like this in our community.”
Karen Bowling, president and CEO of WVU Medicine Princeton Community Hospital, said the Community Health Fair was the first of what she hopes will become an annual event.
“Yes. We thought a lot about what we needed to do to support and help our community,” Bowling said. “At WVU Medicine Princeton Community Hospital, we take care of people that are sick and we do a fabulous job at that. At the end of the day, though, our job is bigger than that. We need to be worried about the health of the community. We need to think about what we can do on the prevention side rather than just always being focused on the care of the sick. We thought, what could we do to be helpful to our community?”
Establishing a new community health fair helps bring a lot of information to the public in one place, she said.
“And we have partnered with Rotary which is a great organization, Princeton Rotary, and we decided to put together a community health fair,” Bowling added. “A community health fair really covers a lot of information about the things that we can do to take personal responsibility for our health and well being.”
Home testing kits for colon cancer were available.
“For example, one of the most important things we need to think about is cancer screening,” Bowling said. “What can we do to prevent cancer or detect it early? So we have a booth we talk a lot about how you do a self breast exam. Why mammography is important. We have a booth that offers an opportunity to get colon screening, that first colon screening tool can give you a clue about whether you need to follow up with your primary care doctor or even a doctor that does colonoscopies.”
Nursing students from Bluefield University in Virginia and Bluefield State University administered flu vaccinations to visitors. People attending the new fair took advantage of several free health screenings provided by PCH medical professionals and staff. These include cardiac risk assessment, body mass index (BMI) and body fat analysis, depression screening and more.
Visitors were able to speak with medical professionals and gather valuable information on various health topics such as diabetes and prediabetes, fall prevention, smoking cessation, breast cancer awareness, nutrition, and Advance Health Directives.
Some Rotarians took time to visit vendors and learn what they had to offer.
“We like to partner with a lot of organizations and businesses in the community, and Heather Poff at the hospital is one of our Rotarians,” said Carin Prescott, president of the Princeton Rotary Club. “She’s the HR (human resources) director, and she asked us if we wanted to partner at this event and it was a definite yes.”
“We want people to know more about Rotary and how we provide service above self,” Prescott continued. “A lot of Rotarians are medical professionals, but we also believe in improving the health of this community in any project we can be a part of.”
Mary Armbrister of Princeton said she read about the new health fair in the Bluefield Daily Telegraph, so she came to the Karen Preservati Center to see what was available.
“Well, when I saw it in the newspaper I thought it would be nice to come out and see what they had,” she said. “There’s a lot of good information here.”
— Contact Greg Jordan at [email protected]
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