Wild About Wellness
Annual event provides thousands of free health screenings for area children
Thousands of children received health screenings and immunizations Saturday at the 23rd annual Wild About Wellness Children’s Health Fair at the Four States Fairgrounds, and that wasn’t all.
The children, ranging from 6 weeks to 18 years old, also got to enjoy bounce houses, petting zoo animals and bicycle safety education.
Their parents browsed around 40 vendor stations, collecting information about Texarkana’s amenities.
Desiree K. Smith, director of sales for Townsquare Media Texarkana, said that for the last 23 years the fair has provided a centralized outlet for children’s health services—which include vision, dental, respiratory, weight and height screening as well 10 to 15 immunizations.
“This fair is conveniently held just before school starts and its also held for three hours on Saturday, so most parents won’t have to leave
work to take their kids for shots or a check up,” she said. “The parking, along with the admission, screenings and immunizations, are all free. It’s the fair’s way of giving back to the community.”
Andi Darby, the event’s lead organizer, said the idea for the fair started in 1995 when local resident Debbie Lashford started the Our Children First Coalition.
“Debbie Lashford’s idea was to provide health monitoring to all kids, regardless of their social and economic conditions,” Darby said. “Today, we have people come from as far as Dallas and Little Rock to the fair, but most of the kids, and their parents, come from about a 60-mile radius of Texarkana. It’s the whole reason we are here and we plan to keep this going every year.”