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First-time wellness festival aims to promote healthier lifestyles

 
Published Nov. 5, 2014

BROOKSVILLE — Usually a quiet day at Hernando County School District headquarters, a recent Saturday was full of activity. The event was a joint effort of the school district and the Hernando County Education Foundation — the first Fall Wellness Festival.

"It's been a goal of the district to incorporate wellness into its benefits," said Lisa Becker, the school district's coordinator of risk benefits and compliance, Lisa Becker.

The district intends to have future internal wellness events, but the first one was open to the public.

The district's goal, Becker said, is to join with the community and education foundation to foster wellness.

Tammy Brinker, executive director of the Hernando County Education Foundation, said, "It was the school district that wanted to provide a wellness event for its employees, and it just kind of grew."

"There were quite a few vendors out there," Brinker said.

Those included the bloodmobile; Walgreens representatives, who measured blood pressure and distributed pedometers; doctors, and insurance companies.

There was also something special: "We had a surprise visit from a flash dance group," Brinker said.

The Anti-Drug Coalition had a display with examples of how cigarette smoking can damage lungs. The school district food and nutrition department had a spot where children could make healthy snacks, like spiders made from peanut butter, pretzels and raisins. The education foundation gave out Halloween cookbooks to children.

There were games that required the players to move. One was the pit stop challenge. Players had to air up and change tires on a mock car. There was a strong-arm game, which used a hammer to make a bell ring. The golf and basketball challenges invited players to hit or toss balls into target areas.

Even the food truck was on the healthy side. Instead of cotton candy, deep-fried Oreos, funnel cakes or fried butter, the vendor offered submarine sandwiches.

Becker mentioned the appearance of a mobile mammography unit. The techs were not providing mammograms, but brought the unit to make people aware of this new option for women seeking mammograms.

The bloodmobile attracted quite a few donors.

"We had 11 people who gave blood," Becker said. "They were happy with that."

As the wellness program expands, Becker and Brinker said they plan to add technology. They expect to have one internal event early in the next school year for teachers, staffers and administrators.

Beyond that, in 2016 and later, they hope the wellness events will be expanded to the community to touch students and their families.

This year was a kickoff "to raise awareness in the community for services available to them," Brinker said, "to show people that wellness can be fun, to encourage a healthy lifestyle."

Attendance was what would be expected at a first-time event, Brinker said, but organizers expect that to grow as the program expands.

"We did feel like we accomplished what we set out to do, and we plan to grow this next year," she said.