Free Community Health Fair scheduled for end of August

ANTIGO — The Langlade County Health Department will host a Community Health Fair at the multipurpose building of the fairgrounds Thursday, Aug. 22 from 1 to 6 p.m.

The event will feature a wide range of free services, from immunizations, sports physicals, and haircuts to car seat, vision, dental, and hearing checks.

Included in the event will also be a number of unique learning opportunities — such as hands-on CPR training overseen by first responders from the fire department — as well as many kid-friendly draws, according to health department office manager Sheila Rine, who has spearheaded planning for the health fair.

“There will be a bouncy house, face-painting. The bike radio, they got rained out, so they’re going to be joining in on our event as well, so they’ll be there from 1 to 3 p.m. and will have bikes to give away as well. The spudmobile will be there. The red robin mascot will be there, so you can have pictures taken with it. We’ll have free food. It’s going to be exciting,” Rine said.

She said the day will be geared most of all towards kids.

“The main thing was the focus on back to school activities and improving our immunization rates, just because immunization rates are down,” Rine said.

“A lot of parents don’t start thinking about back to school until the first day of school: we started planning this when school just got out, so it was hard to think about it, but now, it’s like a month away. It will be here before we know it, so we want to spread the word that these people need these vaccines and they need it before school.”

In particular, Rine and other health department officials hope to administer a large amount of meningitis vaccinations, which schools throughout the state will require students entering the 7th and 12th grades to receive in the upcoming school year.

“It’s about the awareness that these vaccines are available and proven to help. Meningitis can hit and it can kill somebody within 24 hours. That’s more of like sharing the water bottles and doing things like that that kids usually do without thinking twice about it,” Rine said. “But we’re seeing a lot more non-vaccinators, which is bringing back the diseases — you might have heard of measles going around, and that’s because people aren’t getting the MMR vaccine. So we’re seeing a lot more waivers being signed (to exempt students from the requirement), but yet, the vaccines are still safe. There’s nothing wrong with them, and that’s how we were able to eradicate polio back in the day and different things like that.”

They also hope to provide vaccinations — especially the Tdap vaccine for tetanus, diphtheria, and acellular pertussis — or vaccination information to adults.

“Even for adults, now it’s 50 and older that you should get the pneumonia vaccine, and it’s one and done — a lot of people don’t know that,” she said. “We’ll be offering Tdaps for everybody, and then Lakeside will be there offering shingles vaccines and pneumonia vaccines, but you do need insurance cards for them. Aspirus will also be there helping people sign up for the My Aspirus app and then scheduling appointments, and Walgreens will be there also scheduling appointments. So it’s like a one stop shop. Then, if you get your vaccine that day, you’ll get a $25 gift card to help for school supplies, and adults can get gas cards or possibly something else.”

County public health nurse Jean Turunen also said when visitors arrive at the fair, she and other staff members will look up their vaccination records.

“One of the main booths as you walk in is just to say, ‘Are you up to date? Do you have questions? Would you like to receive anything?’ It’s our way of just educating with flu season coming up and COVID vaccines to just clear up any miscommunication or confusion,” Turunen said. “Then we will actually look up their records and say, ‘Hey, you haven’t had a tetanus in 20 years. It’s a good idea to get it and this is why.” So we’ll have nurses there to educate or give vaccines if need be.”

Many local organizations will contribute to the event, according to Rine.

“Northcentral Health Care will be there. The Boys and Girls Club will be there. Calvary Lutheran Church is helping fund the food and the bouncy house. United Way is helping with some of the supplies. The Diaper Bank will be there. The bus company will be there with a bus on site so people can walk through the bus and see bus safety with that,” she said.

Both Rine and Turunen said they are hoping for a large turnout, and emphasized that anyone from around the county will find value in attending.

“I think it’s going to be a great event just for the fact that you will have a lot of resources and information in one stop,” Turunen said. “It will have information for any age, so we’re encouraging the older people or people like veterans to come as well and learn about some of the services that are available for older folks as well as our families. We feel education is important, and just trying to reach everybody is tough sometimes, so we thought this in-person opportunity would be great. For us to be in the community as public servants and to show our faces and really make those connections to our community is important. So I just think there’s a lot of great reasons to host an event like this.”