Educating the Whole Body

Last Thursday I participated in the Loyola College health fair that took place in McGuire Hall. I volunteered with several friends to help the venders and organizers. Due to our success in organizing such a large-scale and widely inclusive fair, the mayor of Baltimore sent a representative to thank us and to declare that because of our actions the day would be the official health day of Baltimore.
I signed up to volunteer through a friend who works at the health office at Loyola. I worked at the fair from nine in the morning until approximately twelve in the afternoon. My job consisted of helping the over ninety venders set up their tables and carrying their equipment if they needed help. Also, after the venders were set up my main job was to scoop the free ice cream for anyone who wanted it.
The fair was open to the public, and many members of the Baltimore community attended. Of those in attendance, the most significant were the Baltimore city school kids. The kids came from two different schools and were extremely intrigued by the multitude of information and experiences they could obtain at the fair; they also loved the ice cream. The kids were energetic and were quick to come up to me and tell me about the many things they had learned and experiences they had such as massages and posture tests.
Although the fair was predominantly filled with Loyola students and Loyola volunteers, there was a significant amount of people from Baltimore. Drawing in the diverse crowd and teaching people about their body, fitness, and health is just as important as any Year of the City event I have attended. Even the college students do not have an opportunity to be educated about their body let alone inner-city school kids. The Loyola Jesuit Vision Statement on the Loyola website claims that the vision of the school is to “instill in them an understanding (of) service” and that Loyola’s main commitment is to create a “sound mind in a sound body.” The health fair was a great tool to establish an understanding of your own body and the information that people gained from the health fair can help them to create a healthy body.
I believe the health fair had a lot of influence on the city and the Loyola community. I feel proud to have been a part of an experience that helped educate many young people about their body. Without the health fair, the inner-city kids would never have experienced anything like a free body posture test or free body fat tests. Also, kids are rarely educated about nutrition and exercise despite their importance in a healthy life.
The health fair was a very quintessential Jesuit event. Not only did it incorporate the city and members of the city, but it also was a platform for a lot of volunteering and free services and even served as a way to educate the whole person. The vast amount of venders that gave up their lunch breaks and money (due to the myriad free give-a-ways) speaks to the pureness and goodness of many people’s hearts. Also, the great turn-out illustrates the natural educational interest many people have in the city and in our Loyola community. The fair had an obvious impact on the community; the mayor’s recognition, the turn-out, the enjoyment of the inner-city kids, and other things all happened solely because of the health fair. Volunteering was a great experience.