Faculty and staff congregated at the Great Hall for the annual Health and Wellness Expo on Monday to obtain information regarding health, dental and vision benefits available to them.
Vendors set up stations to display what they offer and provided information to employees who use their services. Delta Dental, Healthcare Partners, Kaiser Permanente, Wells Fargo, Lakeside Community Healthcare, USC Vision and Forest Lawn Cemetery are some of the vendors that appeared at the fair.
Titan Medical provided information regarding TENS units. A TENS unit is a Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation that sends electrical impulses to certain parts of the body for pain relief. Dan O’Connell, a regional sales representative, had the units displayed and ready for employees to take home with them.
“We come here every year for this fair and over that time at least 40-50 faculty have purchased [a TENS unit],” O’Connell said. “Everything goes through your PPO insurance, so it helps the employees out with no out of pocket costs.”
Some vendors provided samples or evaluations of their products. Primary Health Club performed spinal evaluations, Healthcare Partners completed blood pressure tests and Alpert Vision Care offered complimentary digital retinal scans.
Deanna Cork, an optician with Alpert Vision Care, distributed eyeglass cleaner and answered vision questions from students and faculty.
“For the staff of the school we are providing complimentary eye exams with the mention of ‘Pierce College’ through March and April,” Cork said. “Vision exams are very important and beneficial.”
The event was to provide information to employees but students were also welcome to obtain information if it interested them.
Admissions and Records, counselors, Plant Facilities, professors and many other departments were present to ascertain information available to them.
Karmen Safar and Teresa Frost, Admissions and Records evaluation technicians, came together to the event but for different reasons.
“I wanted to see what was being offered and to get more information about Delta since I have that insurance,” said Safar. “And Regal, they are under Blue Cross and they provided me with a list of all the doctors in all the different cities that I can go to. That’s very good.”
Knowing some of what was available helped her to go exactly where she needed to go to get the information important to her.
“I just wanted to come see what it was all about. I got a lot of information,” Frost said. “I thought I would walk away with a pen or something, but I was pleasantly surprised.”
Employees that attended the event were able to enter in a raffle, organized by the district office that had a prize pack that included 12 gifts from the various vendors.
