Healthy You & Me!

By Julianna Whittaker, VIP Leader at St. Joseph Health 

One of the big success stories from this year has to be our Healthy You & Me event. The whole VIP team here at St. Joseph Health came together and helped plan, from the ground up, a health based, educational, free community wide event! We spent hours of planning with weekly meetings full of prep-work that included finding sponsors, recruiting volunteers, locating a venue, and much more! We recruited volunteers to present topics such as healthy relationships with your partner, biometric health screening (worth over $200!), stress and relaxation tips, how to eat healthy on a budget, tobacco prevention awareness for parents and children, and many more. 

 

Volunteers helping families register.

We spent the weeks prior to the event canvassing neighborhoods, schools and local businesses trying to get the word out about the free services being offered. We talked to current volunteers and asked them to help out with the outreach as well as volunteering for the day of the event. We were able to contact local high-schools which ended up being an amazing resource for recruiting volunteers. The day of the event went smoothly, even though we really didn’t know what to expect given that  it was the first time holding the event! We had plenty of volunteers that showed up on time and ready to help out. Due to the fact that this was our first time holding this event in our community, we didn’t get as much of a response as we had hoped for, however the volunteers turned out to be more than what we expected. They ended up staying after their shifts and turned into participants! We were able to have our classes full, mixed with volunteers as well as community members.

 

After our last session of Zumba, which really got everyone moving, (kids and parents alike!) we had a prizes raffle for those that had turned in evaluation forms. One volunteer in particular really stood out. She had attended the orientation that was planned a few days before the event, and was ready to help out in any way that she could. She was able to pass out lunches to the participants that attend. She also ended up receiving a biometric screening for herself, a yoga session, a Zumba workout, and to top it all off, she won a prize in our raffle. One of our VIP Fellows, Julie McGinty was sitting next to her at the end of the day.  Our volunteer shared with her that this had been the best day she had had in a while. She explained that her situation had been unfortunate lately, but her experience at our event made her feel like things could turn around. She was so overwhelmed with gratitude, that she began to cry.

 

The St. Joseph Health VIP Team.

As a whole team, we didn’t know what to expect going into this event. We planned for just about everything, but at the last minute things can and seem to always change and go a different direction! Being around positive people really made a difference throughout the day. Knowing that you are making a positive impact on a person’s life is a big reason why I believe AmeriCorps VIP works, and why Healthy You and Me will hopefully become a tradition in the future with St. Joseph Health.