Five Towns Community Center Health Fair aims to expand awareness

As Guatemalan Fútbol League soccer games played on Sadie E. Scott Recreation Field, a long stretch of small tents dotted the Five Towns Community Center parking lot in Lawrence as the center’s Health & Prevention Services component hosted a health fair on June 26.

On a simultaneously sunny and cloudy, breezy and humid Saturday, representatives of several health organizations and institutions manned booths and discussed their programs with potential clients. For those who built up an appetite playing soccer or speaking, there were hamburgers, hot dogs and beverages.

David Martin Chavez, a coordinator from the Health & Welfare Council of Long Island, one of the more gregarious attendees, explained that the 75-year-old organization offers a variety of services, and helps upward of a 100 people per day.

“I try to help, ask questions, find out what they’re eligible for and refer them to as many programs as I can,” Martin Chavez said, adding that many people, from seniors to undocumented immigrants, are unaware of assistance programs. “I give them the information from A to Z, and hold their hand. I say, you’re eligible — take it!”

NY Project Hope, a program of the New York State Office of Mental Health that operates at the New Horizon Counseling Center in Valley Stream, has a staff of crisis counselors to help with issues ranging from economic hardship to behavioral health, and offers services to the Five Towns.

“It is evident that the pandemic has propelled people into a state of crisis,” Nadia Trought, a NY Project Hope coordinator, wrote in an email, “and this program can assist with bringing relief, support, and some form of normalcy to the community.”

The health fair is a way to put the community center’s Health & Prevention Services “on the map,” said Karen Haslem, the center’s coordinator of peer and health education.

“We’re here to show our community that we’re back and to step out and let everybody know that after Covid, we’re here,” she said, noting Gammy’s Pantry, run by Sasha Young. “We have immigration services, we have HIV and AIDS prevention, we have drug and alcohol programs, we have after-school programs, we have a summer program, and we also have Head Start.”

Haslem said that representatives of the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program make weekly visits, and Health & Prevention Services holds workshops on a range of topics and also visits hospitals and organizations. “We link you to whatever the care is,” she said.

Tim Bentson, the program coordinator of Health & Prevention Services, underscored the issues that the Health & Welfare Council of Long Island, Project Hope and the community center are all trying to overcome, ranging from language barriers to fear among those who are undocumented.

“We are looking at sort of being on the other side of Covid and making sure we continue to offer services, very much needed services, to the Five Towns community,” Bentson said, adding that community engagement is key. “One of the things I think most service providers do is they do not partner with the community in terms of reaching these obstacles. I believe in clearly engaging the community in such a way that members of the community are partners in helping us meet our goals.”