Health fair prompts students to think about personal wellbeing
CALIFORNIA – California University of Pennsylvania students learned through experience and observations how to ensure a long healthy life at the university’s 15th annual Health Fair Wednesday at the Natali Student Center. Students Tim Phillips and Courtney Pabian said they definitely won’t drink and drive after participating in a fatal vision driving course sponsored by PennDOT and they won’t smoke after seeing a Mon Valley Hospital display of a set of human lungs blackened from cigarette smoking.
Phillips, a junior, said he only hit three cones as he drove a golf cart through the narrow obstacle course while wearing goggles that simulate alcohol impairment and a state trooper on the passenger side.
He said the goggles made his vision blurry, but driving with a state trooper by his side was weird.
Phillips and Pabian also answered questions for a personality profile given by Chestnut Ridge Counseling in Uniontown and found that they are both sensitive people who should pursue careers in patient care, community service, sales or teaching.
The two students said the fair gave them a different outlook on some lifestyle issues and made them aware of a lot of current health problems.
Tammie Wehrle, nurse manager at the Mon Valley Hospital, said good health and a long life largely depends on lifestyle.
“It’s all about the lifestyle,” Wehrle said, noting that her booth was geared toward educating young adults about the dangers of smoking, drinking and other bad habits that can negatively affect one’s health.
Wehrle, along with a large number of others representing various organizations, incorporated valuable health information with games, contests and free giveaways.
Booths filled with literature, displays, games and prizes could be found both inside and outside of the crowded Natali Student Center. Students stopped at tables geared toward everything from free gifts to free health screenings.
Sondra Helmick, a senior at Cal U, stopped by the Penn Commercial Inc. Business and Technical School of Washington display and got a free blood screening.
Helmick, who has participated in university fair’s in the past, said the event makes students more aware of current health issues.
“There are always questions students are afraid to ask their parents. They can get their answers here,” Helmick said, noting booths with information on AIDS and HIV, as well as a host of other diseases and illnesses were available.
Various campus organizations also took advantage of the huge crowd by recruiting and introducing students to their cause.
Nancy Skobel, project director of PEACE (Prevention, Education, Advocacy for Change and Empowerment), said she was pleased with all the students signed up to volunteer for various projects. She said she was especially excited about how many men signed up for the group’s Men Against Violence campaign.
The fair’s activities and information really seemed to “sink in” with many students, who talked to representatives at length, some showing a change in attitude.
Valerie Petersen, community relations coordinator at PennDOT, said some students, after completing the fatal vision driving course, showed a change in attitude toward drinking and driving.
“While they stand in line and wait, they say ‘this will be a piece of cake,’ but once they put those goggles on and hit two, four, sometimes five cones they think differently. Then we tell them those could have been people,” Petersen said.
Wehrle said after talking to the many students who stopped by her booth, she’s found that the fair has impacted each of them in some way.
She said one student talked to her at length about alcoholism and asked for additional information to take home to discuss with her father.
She said many students were sickened by the sight of a blackened lung and asked for tips on how to stop smoking.
“It’s hitting home,” she said. “They are listening.”