CTC holds 12th annual Wellness Fair

By BRITTANY FHOLER 
Cove Leader-Press 

Central Texas College partnered with Seton Medical Center to hold its 12th annual Wellness Fair in the Anderson Campus Center Wednesday morning, complete with 60 vendors, fitness demonstrations, door prizes and several items available during the silent auction. 
The theme of the Wellness Fair was “Eat the Best, Be the Best, Leave the Rest.” Co-sponsor Seton Medical Center Harker Heights had nurses offering blood pressure checks as well as representatives available to offer Body Mass Index (BMI) checks and a chance to try on Drunk Goggles to give students a chance to experience what being drunk does to their sense of balance without actually imbibing. Seton Medical Center also had poster boards with information on heart health as well as pamphlets about overall health. 
Carolina Numan, marketing and communications specialist, explained that lots of people had taken advantage of the blood pressure readings, including young students, giving them the opportunity to ask questions and find out what services are available and what steps they can take as a result of their readings that they might not have known. In addition to those services, Seton Medical Center partner Wellstone Health Partners was represented by their dietician and physical therapy program, offering information on the services they offer. 
“I feel that when people think Seton Medical Center Harker Heights, they think ‘Hospital’ but you don’t necessarily pinpoint it with different services that you can come see us for, so that’s really the key thing for us,” Numan said. 
Other vendors included local banks and credit unions, different insurance companies, Bell County Indigent Health Services, Department of Veteran Affairs Killeen-Heights Vet Center, a doTERRA Essential Oils consultant, local gyms, Integrity Rehab, Knights Family Dentistry, Greater Killeen Community Clinic, a LulaRoe consultant, MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving), a Mary Kay consultant, Metroplex Health System, Nature-All, Nature Jewelry, Nikken Wellness, NuBody Med Spa, a Scentsy consultant, STARRY, State Fire Marshall’s Office, Texas Humane Heroes- with three dogs available for adoption, The Vitamin Shoppe and Vitalogy Skincare. 
Mary McKee, with CTC’s Risk Management, said that over the last four years the number of vendors has doubled and each year, the event and silent auction has grown. Proceeds from the silent auction will benefit the CTC Foundation scholarship program. Some of the items up for auction included restaurant certificates, gift baskets with items from Starbucks and Walmart, gym memberships, a one-night stay at the Shilo Inn, a golf bag and plants from the CTC Agriculture department. 
McKee said the vendors aren’t limited to just fitness or medical but rather target total wellness- including financial wellness. 
“It’s not just working out and being fit,” McKee said. “It’s the different kinds of wellness that brings to you. It’s the mental, it’s the spiritual, it’s the physical, and everything like that.”
 Students in Erike Willes’s Muay Thai class demonstrated moves and techniques they had learned, individually and with a partner. Michelle Fry, owner of the Jazzercise Killeen Fitness Center at 1900 Elms Rd in Killeen, led a Jazzercise demonstration at noon and invited fellow vendors and guests to join in as she showed different routines to illustrate the dance and exercise elements of Jazzercise. 
Fry said that she has been a vendor at the CTC Wellness Fair since the beginning and welcomes the opportunity to support events such as the Wellness Fair. 
“One of the things I love about the people that come to our table is that we’re serving not only the faculty here at CTC but the students too, so to be able to stress the importance of health and wellness at such a young age is I think a really important part of what we do,” Fry said. 
Representatives from Isdale Chiropractic Clinic, in Killeen, and Corrective Chiropractic and Wellness, in Harker Heights, both offered free spinal screenings, while Jeannie Nipp from Knead Peace in Belton offered a free table massage and students from the CTC Continuing Education’s Licensed Massage Therapy Program offered free five-minute chair massages. The students have completed 550 hours of education and will begin their month-long internships next week, April 10. 
The Scott and White Blood Center was also at the Wellness Fair, with representatives inside signing people up and people donating blood inside the mobile van in the parking lot. Debra Boyer, Scott and White Blood Center’s Donor Recruitment Supervisor, said that the Blood Center has partnered with CTC at their Wellness Fair for several years and have always had a good turnout. 
“People definitely like the opportunity to have us on campus and donate blood,” Boyer said. 
The blood drive was based on walk-in traffic only, which is not how the Blood Center normally operates, but that did not prevent people from stopping and donating blood. Typically, this blood drive produces around 20-30 units of blood during the four hours of the Wellness Fair, Boyer said. To donate blood, all someone needed was a photo I.D. and at least 30 minutes of their time to register, submit to a medical screening and a vitals check and then donate blood. Donors received a free T-shirt. 
The blood collected will be used for patients at Baylor Scott and White. Boyer shared that approximately 1 in 3 people will need blood at some point in their life, but only about 30 percent of the population actually qualifies to donate blood, and only 10 percent of that 30 percent actually do donate blood. 
“It’s important that anyone who does qualify to donate blood and has the time available to do it, takes that time to do so,” Boyer said. “Because there’s no substitute for blood. It can’t be artificially manufactured. It has to come from a healthy donor, so patients in need are very much dependent on the people that can find time in their days to do so.”
The calendar of future blood drives for the Scott and White Blood Center can be found at www.bswblood.com.