By Bre Nichols
Reporter
Several Baylor student organizations are coming together to present a night of food, fun and inflatables with “Be a Healthier U: 1st Annual Health-Fair Extravaganza” from 6 to 9 p.m. Friday in Fountain Mall.
The event will wrap up Baylor’s Health Week, which has included five days of events, lectures and campus displays aimed at raising awareness of issues relating to health and nutrition. Proceeds from the extravaganza will benefit the Dallas Children’s Medical Center’s fundraising event, the Red Balloon Run and Relay.
The extravanganza will feature a carnival theme with cotton candy, popcorn, games, live music of Baylor Uproar artists and more, Sherman senior Carla Hugus said.
Hugus served on the Campus Health Fair Committee, which organized the event. The committee includes members from the American Medical Student Association, the American Student Dental Association, Alpha Epsilon Delta, the Multicultural Association of Pre-Health Students, BU Medical Ethics Discussion Society and the Medical Service Organization.
Hugus said the committee came up with the idea for the carnival-themed extravaganza in order to integrate the promotion of Healthcare in a social environment.
“We really want to promote healthcare on a campus wide level and increase awareness, especially with all the new national reforms going on and ground-breaking research [in healthcare] going on nowadays,” Cypress senior Alexeis Baqui, head chair of the committee, said The group wants to encourage students who are not pre-med or pre-dental to go and receivehealth-related information.
The carnival will feature 26 booths, each promoting aspects and information relating to Healthcare. Booths are sponsored by local community and student organizations. Local physicians and dentists will also be on site to give free health and oral hygiene screenings, he said.
Baqui said although this is the first year for a campus-wide health fair, the idea has been floating around among pre-health student organizations for a few years.
“I thought during my senior year I would step up and lead along with my fellow student organization leaders,” Baqui said, in order to present the first “campus wide collaborative health fair.”
Baqui said he hopes the extravaganza will encourage and inform participants on matters of health and nutrition in all aspects of life.
The committee will be selling T-shirts in the Bill Daniel Student Center this week and during the carnival for $10 each. Cotton candy and popcorn will each cost two tickets. Health-related games, jousting inflatables and moon bounce inflatables will cost one to two tickets each, depending on the activity.
More information on the Health-Fair Extravaganza can be found at the Baylor AMSA website.
