The Health Fair, located in the Great Hall, will be from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. This is the second time Pierce College will be hosting it with the aid of S.H.A.C. (Student Health Advisory Committee) and the health center.
“Since spring semester was a success, we decided to try it for the fall semester,” Loralyn Fredrick, assistant at the Pierce College Health Center, said. “We were going to do it annually but decided to try it again.”
According to Beth Benne, director of the Pierce College Health Center, for the past few years, the health center has had difficulties establishing its presence to students on campus. S.H.A.C. was created two years ago to bring more awareness to the center. The health center and S.H.A.C. were able to gather up vendors such as, the Aids Healthcare Foundation, Strength United, and Covered California to support the event.
There will be 11 booths at the event, one of them will be the Kinesiology Department, who will be providing informational handouts about the body and muscles. Covered California will also be there assisting students who don’t have health insurance.
Professor of kinesiology, Susan Armenta, will also be at the event sharing what her department will be presenting this semester.
“We will do a body fat assessment with a bioelectrical impedance analyzer that measures your body fat percentage,” Armenta said. “We’ll also have resistance bands and some agility ladders for testing.”
Last year S.H.A.C. had an RV behind the Great Hall that offered anonymous and confidential HIV testing, however it was hard for students to find. This semester it will be located in front of the Great Hall on the Mall to make it more visible.
For every student that attends, each one will receive a bag of items from the health center that includes a stress ball, hand sanitizer, sunscreen and much more. They will also have yoga and zumba instructions some time in the afternoon.
According to Benne, last year they helped a football player discover he had genetic kidney disease with a simple blood sugar test. They were able to consult the player and refer him out to experts to get him treated immediately.
Students can also expect displays that will present visual damage that tobacco can do to one’s lungs. At the end of the event, students will receive raffle tickets for every booth they visited and submit an evaluation as a part of their attendance.
“It’s all hands on deck. All members of the staff will be working on the different tables,” Fredrick said. “Last year I was at the vision screening area, or wherever they needed me, and I would be there. We’re going to have different tables for different interests, from mental health to nutrition.”
