Sami Dilisio

KINS 4306
Dr. Kaninjing
April 20, 2024

What I did: I decided to assist in the planning and implementation of two health fairs

being hosted by Live Healthy Gwinnett. My overall goal was to have at least 30 vendors at the

fair and to get around 100 people to attend. Live Healthy Gwinnett’s Be Active Team often

serves areas that are low income or underprivileged where community members lack health

resources and education, so health fairs align very well with the organization's missions and

goals.

Planning: To begin, the planning of both health fairs were similar in terms of the tasks

that I needed to complete and the people I needed to reach out to ensure the fair runs smoothly.

The first task I knew was crucial to the health fair was of course getting vendors who were

willing to come out to our event and table/ offer free services. For this task I looked a lot into

non-profit and private health care practices and called numerous places like dental offices,

primary care facilities, chiropractors, optometrists, urgent care facilities, and more to ask them if

they would like to attend our health fair. I then made a list of emails containing all the

organizations who were interested in learning more about the health fair and emailed them all

pertinent information such as locations, dates, and prices ($50 for non-profits, $100 for vendors,

$500 for sponsorships). Furthermore, I also had to submit marketing requests for flyers, banners,

posters, and emails to help promote our health fair and get the word out to community members

regarding the free services we would be providing. Once we received approval for these posters

and flyers, my supervisor and I had to plan out where we wanted to hang them and hand out

flyers; looking for areas with high community engagement so we could get the most community

interactions. Later on, I had to go through applications and confirm vendor payments so that I
could finalize the schedule and create a layout of the event to make sure there was enough space,

and everyone knew where they were expected to go. The last part of the planning process

includes things like finalizing vendor check-ins, raffle call outs, scheduling presentations, and

creating a volunteer check in system.

Implementing: After planning the health fairs, the next step was going to them and seeing

the turn out of the event which was something that I had been really looking forward to. Health

Fair prep consisted of arriving at the location around two hours early and then beginning to set

up (putting up chairs, tables, pipe/drape based on layout, arranging speakers for music, and

putting extension cords where needed.) As we waited for the vendors to arrive to set up their

marketing table and services, Live Healthy Gwinnett’s team also had to set up their table and

giveaways! We set up our marketing table that consisted of flyers for our events, our newsletter

sheet, bracelets, coloring books, a health-related game, and our raffle set up. After vendors and

community members started to arrive, I then spent most of the time taking photos and videos for

Live Healthy Gwinnett's social media and networking with the different organizations. This

served as a great opportunity to not only market for Live Healthy Gwinnett, but this also was a

great networking experience for me to learn about different jobs/organizations in the field of

public health. After the event was over, we then had to pack up everything and make sure the

room was the same way we found it! This entire process was the same for both health fairs; the

only real difference was location because the first one was at Norcross and the second was at

Suwanee.

Why it was Needed: This health fair was extremely needed and fit in perfectly with the

mission and goals of Live Healthy Gwinnett and the areas they serve. Specifically, one of Live

Healthy Gwinnett's programs, Be Active Gwinnett, serves underprivileged areas, low-income

regions, those who have restricted access to healthcare, and vulnerable populations such as

seniors and undocumented Latinos. Due to the types of communities our programs serve, I knew

that a health fair that offers free screenings, giveaways, and health education would be very

beneficial. At our health fair we offered several services including dental screenings, vision

screenings, checking blood pressure rates, CPR lessons, and heart rate screenings which were all

very important because many of the community members we serve do not get regular health

checkups. I also found that oftentimes low-income areas lack proper education, so I wanted to

make sure that we had a health educator come in to inform everyone on various health topics.

We ended up having women from Northside Hospital talk to us about topics like the importance

of sleep, nutrition, and heart health which was informative for not only the health fair

participants, but also myself!

Evaluation of How it Went: Overall, I was very pleased with the turnout rates our health

fairs had! I also really appreciate all of the staff and Gwinnett County volunteers that came out to

assist in the setting up and taking down of the health fair because there was a lot to do. I was not

only pleased by the community turn out, but I was also very happy with the number of vendors

that we got to come out and support Live Healthy Gwinnett. We ended up having well over 150

people attend the fairs and there were 41 vendors that joined, so our goal was exceeded!

What I Would Change: There honestly isn't anything that happened regarding the health

fair that I would change, however there is more that I wish I could've done. For example, I think

it would be nice if we got even more vendors than we did that offered more services to the

community for free. I especially think having more vendors and a bigger venue would be

beneficial in the future given how large our turn out was, so there would be less wait time for

people to get their screenings. I also think it would have been nice if I could have created more
marketing flyers and designed them however, I wanted, but because I am interning for a

government organization I was very limited on what I was allowed to do.

Materials Created: This section will be included as attachments in my E-Portfolio! Some

material will include: my project outline, a list of vendors, the health fair layout, health fair

flyers, and photos taken all throughout the day during the health fair.