A full house for women’s health fair at SKC

By Lailani Upham

People gather at the Women 4 Wellness health fair while a song is heard from Arlee drum group, Sunrise, for the opening ceremony. (Courtesy photo)

PABLO — It takes six months to a year to plan a health fair, but with only a tad over a couple of months of planning - the Women 4 Wellness seminar held recently, turned out to be a huge success according to Kathie Maiers with the SKC Prevention Task Force and co-coordinator of the Wellness seminar.

The advisory board included 25 community women and SKC staff members for the health fair.

“We had planned to reach 400 women and we had 1,153 registered,” said Maiers. The registered number did not include the women who just showed up for the health fair.

“Ages ranged from 7 to 97,” Maiers said.

Women 4 Wellness was funded by the Office of Women’s Health along with many local sponsors. According to event and SKC Task Force Programs Coordinator, Niki Graham she says, “Without the community support giving from $100 to $1000 in sponsorship levels the event would not have been possible.”

Approximately 100 exhibitors were present with SKC nursing students servicing 18 booths. At one booth, participants could take an HIV test and receive their results within 20 minutes at the SKC Prevention Task Force exhibit. They also received a $20 gift card to Wal-mart, Joe’s Jiffy Stop or SKC Three Wolves cafeteria for getting a HIV rapid test. Eighty people were tested according Graham.

Sixteen speakers came to take part from Missoula to Polson and had a chance to share on a diverse range of health issues for women according to co-chair Eleanor Vizcarra. Heart disease, presented by Dr. Newton B. Coutinho based out of Missoula, was a popular topic according to Vizcarra.

Each speaker had an hour time slot in the Johnny Arlee Victor Charlo theatre on the SKC campus. Other topics included: sexually transmitted diseases and infections, rape/sexual assault, barriactric surgery, hormones, stress/anxiety, financial money matters, hypothyroidism, HOPE (honoring opportunities to empower women), solutions made simple, self-defense, and the western Montana Mental Health had a panel set up for questions.

Pamela Sandall, does a spinal evaluation on a participant at the Polson Family Chiropractic exhibit. (Courtesy photo)

Women, as well as other participants, were able to have over a dozen tests that measured cholesterol to bone density scans. Ronan resident, Jackie Bjarko says she was really pleased they were doing something like this. “The way insurance is right now, its great you can take a day and do all this,” said Bjarko. “There were lots of free exams that you wouldn’t even think of. Lab work gets expensive, so this is good.”

Corporate sponsors were: Anderson Broadcasting, Dr. Newton B. Coutinho, St. Luke Hospital, St Joseph Hospital, St. Patrick Hospital, Super 1 Foods, Harvest Foods, KPAX and Wal-mart who all gave $1,000 or more. Gold sponsorships gave from $500 up to $999, which came from Eagle Bank and S & K Electronics. Dr. Vic Davis of St. Ignatius, was the lone silver sponsorship with his gift of up to $499. In-kind sponsorships came from: St. Luke Foundation, Lake County Leader, Valley Journal, Insty-Prints and Gateway Printing.

The first 500 registered participants received a tote bag from SKC with goodies stuffed inside from many of the community sponsors. “We got really cool bags, which reminds me I have to go use my cholesterol testing coupon,” added Bjarko.