Resource fair, health banquet this weekend
With the theme of “Building Blocks of Community Health,” the Difference Makers of Hot Springs will hold its Third Annual Hot Springs Community Health Banquet Friday followed by the free Fifth Annual Hot Springs Community Resource Fair on Saturday.
The banquet will honor people “who are trailblazers (and) community advocates,” Willie Wade Jr., Difference Makers founder and president said, including the Rev. C.B. Baker, Chester Carrigan, Michael “Mack” Early, the Rev. Leon Massey and Jeff Taylor. Tickets for the event are $30.
The keynote speaker will be the Rev. Der
ick Easter with the Arkansas Out of School Network. He is also the senior pastor of new St. Hurricane Baptist Church in Pine Bluff. The event is also celebrating the 50th year of the Council for the Liberation of Blacks, a local group formed in 1969 to “address social unrest and equality in Hot Springs,” a news release said.
The event will feature live music by Wine & Roses Jazz Band and is being catered by Smokin’ in Style BBQ.
The free resource fair on Saturday will address the building blocks of community health. Wade said there are four elements that make up these building blocks, including physical, mental, social and environmental factors.
This year’s theme hopes to “address the connection between physical, mental, social, and environmental factors that influence socioeconomic outcomes. Poverty does not just exist but derives from lack of employment, education, and income opportunities,” the releases said.
Speakers on the “Building Blocks of Community Health” will include Arkansas Secretary of Labor and Licensing Daryl E. Bassett, Ouachita Behavioral Health & Wellness Executive Director Rob Gershon, Arkansas state Independent Living Council Executive Director FranSha Anderson and Jeffrey Slatton, Healthy Connections Inc. business director.
Esther Dixon, Difference Makers of Hot Springs executive director, said the event will feature free health and wellness checks for members of the community. She said they also hope to help end the “stigma of mental illness” and start a conversation about it.
Wade said they usually have 35 to 40 vendors show up, and between 200 and 250 attendees. He said they try to keep the fair fun to “engage young people to attend.”
Wade said the origin of the fair and banquet was that a church wanted to participate in National Make A Difference Day.
“We kind of started out as part of a church and community go together to try to do better in our immediate area,” he said, noting that after the event, the group decided to form an organization to continue to help the community.
Some people, Wade said, either don’t have access to or the knowledge of certain things, causing them to fall through the cracks of society. He said the group is trying to “bridge the gaps” that these people are falling down.
“It’s about helping connect the dots,” Dixon said.
The banquet will be held from 6 to 9 p.m. Friday at Union Baptist Church Life Center, 219 Gulpha St., and the community resource fair will be held from 9 a.m. to noon at the Webb Community Center, 127 Pleasant St.