By Jennifer Stultz
Tri-County Tribune Editor
jstultz@cherryroad.com
More than 40 health-related vendors set up booths for the Pratt Community Health Fair on Saturday, October 19 at the Pratt Municipal Building, and more than 115 people came in to have free lab work done and take in all the activities that were part of this revitalized event.
“We had enough to pay for 250 free blood draws so I wish we had more people come in for that, but over all it was a success and we had a lot of connections and networking that happened. It was a lot of fun,” said event organizer Darcie Van Der Vyver.
Van Der Vyver worked together with Aimee Bryan, Pratt Regional Medical Center’s social media assistant to promote and organize the event, but she said success was due to the many volunteers who contributed time, effort, and donations.
“I just want to say thank you to all the staff, raffle donors, sponsors, vendors, and attendees who participated in the 2024 Pratt Community Health Fair,” she said. “If you attended the health fair and would like to provide feedback, please complete an attendee survey by Nov. 1 online at https://form.jotform.com/…/2024-health-fair-evaluation.”
While this wasn’t the first-ever community health fair in Pratt, it was the first one that Van Der Vyver spearheaded as organizer, and there were many considerations that had to fall into place in a short time for it all to happen.
“PRMC usually has the health fair on their campus, at least has for the past few years, and sometimes that wasn’t very conducive to traffic flow, or for parts that were outside, there were problems with the weather,” Van Der Vyver said. “I started going with this in August and we just wanted to try a few things new, along with old, to see if we could make it bigger and better, and a more useful event.”
Held at the municipal building, traffic flow was established in the vendor area this year which allowed people to access all the booths under their own time frame, after giving blood or having free lab work done in the front of the building. A special colon display on stage was eye-catching, as were several other stations, particularly the health fair raffle table, and a cute dog mascot from Hill Top Manor.
“We are still trying to determine what is the best day of the week to try and hold something like this, and maybe next year we could combine it with one of the other community events also going on, so there are a lot of considerations underway as to what we will do next year,” Van Der Vyver said.
A list of 2024 health fair raffle donors/winners from the event follows: Blythe Family Fitness/Troy Johnson and Justin Couch, City of Pratt/Shelby Starks, Cottonwood Dental/Margie Thomason, Family Crisis Center/Jessica Sanders, Hearing Life/ Tom Schiff, Interim Healthcare/Bruce Pinkall, KCK Coaching/Tom Wallace, Memories/Kristin Kettwich, Minnis Chapel/Destini Miller, Parkwood Village/Suzanne Fast, Pratt County Health Department/Justin Tillotson, T.O.P.S./Kristin Kettwich, Walmart/Shelly Little, American Red Cross/Jacquita Bales.
