Campus-Wide Health Fair Promotes Resources Available for the Colonel Community

Two of Eastern Kentucky University’s graduate students paved the way for public health students, planning and organizing a campus-wide health fair on Tuesday, April 4, for National Public Health Week. 

Public health graduate assistants Anne Goodman and MiKaela Dismukes reached out to their associate professor, Laurel Schwartz, in January about implementing a health fair. As Schwartz said, “Not just any health fair—a large event for students, faculty and staff.” 

“From there, Anne and MiKaela took off. I only provided guidance and feedback when solicited,” said Schwartz. 

There were 22 vendors present for the event, including Purdy’s Coffee, Baptist Health Richmond and Hope’s Wings. The health fair was modeled around this year’s National Public Health Week themes, which were food and nutrition, community, violence prevention, reproductive and sexual health, mental health, rural health and accessibility. 

During the lead-up to the health fair, Goodman and Dismukes teamed up with the Colonel’s Cupboard to incorporate a blood drive as a part of their initiatives. The day of the event, a free yoga class was offered in the Ravine. Goodman and Dismukes worked with two undergraduate classes to help staff the health fair, make graphics, distribute flyers and prepare prize bundles, which were given to the first 50 students who attended.

The vendors for the event offered a variety of services. Some highlights included: a drunk goggles simulation along with drunk driving education from EKU Public Health and Eta Sigma Gamma, CPR training and demonstrations by the YMCA, and diversity and inclusion education and services by the Center for Inclusive Excellence and Global Engagement (CIEGE) and El Centro. 

“It was very important to me to show our students what resources are available to them both on campus and within the community. As a single mother, I feel that I have a good insight into how important these resources are, but how hard they are to find sometimes. I wanted to make it a bit easier for our students. I would love to make this a yearly event and continue to add community partners to it each year,” said Goodman. 

Goodman and Dismukes used campus and external networks to advertise the health fair, secured funding from the public health department, managed the budget and utilized a senior public health course to assist with promoting the health fair and vendors. 

“What Anne and MiKaela accomplished was quite impressive. It was an honor to observe the work and the outcome,” said Schwartz. 

Published on May 03, 2023