On April 27, Delta’s health sciences and nursing students hosted a Health Fair to spread awareness about different medical illnesses and conditions.
The students are overseen by Cheri Wells, who is the lead instructor for nursing courses and was in charge of giving her students general advice and directions during the fair.
“Our goal is directed towards Healthy People 2020, which is a government mandated community health education,” said Wells.
Lori Riley-Weigel, one of the supervising instructors who attended the fair, discussed why the students host this event every year.
“Community outreach and community education is a big part of their learning process so this is one of the ways they can reach the campus community. Every year it’s different. They decided what they what to educate on and they put together their own boards and fliers,” she said.
Their graduating fourth-semester students choose the topics to present and were fully in charge of designing and building the booths.
Some of the stands set up by the students included a diabetes education booth, a smoking booth to help smokers quit, a breast cancer awareness booth and a sexually transmitted diseases booth that helped educate about STD awareness.
“The students do everything from the stands to the topics. They present almost all of the major topics from alcohol abuse to nutrition facts about people’s diets,” said Julie Kay, Dean of Health and Science.
Meryll Agbayani helped run the nutrition and wellness stand.
“We talk about the many diseases and health problems that can happen with a poor diet. As a student we are overstressed because of school and there is not a lot of time to exercise or even eat well. So we put together ways to still eat health but in a cheap beneficial way,” she said.
Agbayani also talked about little exercises students can do between classes to keep themselves fit and energized throughout the day.
Quitting smoking and dieting can seem impossible for most people, but Riley-Weigel has a great out look with people interested in a healthier life style.
“Everyone’s motivations are different and a lot of young people think STD’s and general health risks like diabetes can’t happen to them, but they are stopping and taking interest so even if it’s only one or two people, that is one or two that we have helped.”