The Heart of Northside is putting some exciting volunteer opportunities. One is a one-time event; the second will require a more regular commitment for health professionals.
First, we are hosting a health fair at the Heart of Northside on Saturday, February 15th, from 2pm – 5pm. We will need your help with screenings, logistics, and spreading the word. Ultimately, we hope to make this event at least twice a year so that we can keep Northside healthy for the long-haul so, if you enjoy this event there may be more opportunities for fun and connection.
Specifically, we need:
• 5 volunteers to set up tables and chairs beginning at 10am, then break down at 5pm,
• Volunteers to assist with promotion and marketing,
• 1-2 volunteers to help check in neighbors, provide information and direction,
• Health professionals to screen blood pressure and glucose (maybe other screening, too),
• Health professionals to provide lifestyle counseling on healthy eating,
• 3 data collectors: how many attendees were present, help neighbors with brief surveys.
As for the longer-term commitment, the Heart of Northside has been developing community-embedded Blood Pressure Stations to help combat one of the greatest risk factors of heart attacks and strokes – hypertension. We learned a lot from the station we created that served the Northside Farmers Market last summer. For example, even in a group of neighbors who are generally healthy, about one-third did not have their blood pressure well controlled. Of the neighbors who did not have well-controlled blood pressure, we found that their blood pressures improved over time. This shows the power of community in keeping each other healthy.
We want to not only continue that work, but expand into area recreation centers. We are looking for health professionals who can work the station at the Northside Farmers Market on Wednesdays and help continue the great work there, but also we will need volunteers to help create new stations in the McKie and Millvale Recreation Centers. The dates and times have yet to be determined as we want to focus on times of greatest activity to help the most neighbors.
These volunteer health professional will help identify the best times for establishing the stations, as well as the logistics at each location. The volunteers will also check blood pressures, collect data, provide information on how to improve their blood pressure, and enter the data into our (deidentified) databases. Ultimately we want to to use this information to write for funding so that this work can do good for our communities well into the future.
Mainly we would need health professionals to work with the staff at both the Millvale and McKie Recreation Centers (2 per location) and:
• Determine best time of day at both locations (when do they have the most activity, which group would have most interest, etc)
• Develop the logistics: where would the Blood Pressure Station be located, what would patient flow look like, how would the set-up be organized, who would obtain and confirm that permission form has been signed, where would the materials (blood pressure cuffs, information sheets, etc) be stored, which information sheets would we use, who would restock the information sheets from week to week, etc.
• Check and record blood pressure, make sure data is entered
• Dispense appropriate information needed for that particular situation (connect to primary provider, lifestyle information, medication questions, etc).
If you’re interested in assisting at the health fair on February 15th or help us with the blood pressure stations, please get in touch and tell us a bit about yourself, your experience and your interest. We look forward to hearing from you and thank you for your dedication to the community!
