Saturday event kicks off students’ Community Service Learning (CSL) Challenge
The Miss Fiesta Health Fair, to be held Saturday at Traders Village San Antonio, will feature a wide range of health education and screenings offered by students from across disciplines at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.
The event is hosted by Miss Fiesta® 2013 Victoria Flores, a nursing student at the UT Health Science Center, who has made preventative health and fitness her platform.
“After struggling with diet and fitness for years, San Antonio is making strides,” said Flores, who expects to receive her bachelor’s degree in nursing this December. “The adult obesity rate is falling, and hopefully rates of heart disease and diabetes will follow. We must press ahead with our health promotion efforts to ensure these trends continue and no one is left behind.”
The Miss Fiesta Health Fair will run from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 12. Two 50-minute Zumba classes will be held at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m.
Available all day are flu vaccines; screenings for blood pressure, glucose, body mass index and body fat; medication consultations; education on diabetes, heart disease, stroke, skin and prostate cancer, nutrition, breathing problems and dental hygiene; and information on Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and the new Health Insurance Marketplace, created under the federal Affordable Care Act.
The Health Science Center students will be joined by health professionals from community organizations, including Walgreens, San Antonio Metropolitan Health District, and NIX Health.
For the Health Science Center students, the Miss Fiesta Health Fair kicks off a six-month-long Community Service Learning (CSL) Challenge.
The CSL Challenge is a joint project of the Center for Medical Humanities & Ethics and the Office of Student Life. The Health Science Center offers a variety of CSL opportunities for students from all disciplines. Through the CSL Challenge, students will track their participation and become eligible for prizes.
Service learning is a structured learning experience that combines community service with mentored preparation and reflection. Students respond to community-identified concerns. As a result, they gain insight into the context in which illness develops, the connection between their service and academic coursework, and their roles as citizens and professionals.
Melanie Stone, M.P.H., M.Ed., directs the university’s community service learning program through the Center for Medical Humanities & Ethics.
“Through partnering with community organizations, our students work to reduce disparities and enhance access to health care. A student doing CSL gets a chance to work on a real-world project that he or she is passionate about and that meaningfully impacts people. Engagement in these experiential learning experiences gives rise to our future community-connected health care professionals and leaders. The CSL Challenge is a way to promote the CSL opportunities available to all students on our campus,” Stone said.
Traders Village San Antonio is at 9333 S.W. Loop 410. It is located on S.W. Loop 410 at Old Pearsall Road. From downtown, take Interstate 35 south to Loop 410. Take a right heading west and exit Old Pearsall Road. Do the u-turn under the overpass and the market is on the right.