EL CENTRO — A plethora of booths occupied the area in front of Macy’s inside the Imperial Valley Mall on Thursday, Feb. 12, during the first Trusted Care Senior Wellness and Health Fair.
Doctors offices, clinics and Imperial County health organizations were in attendance, as well as local businesses and nonprofits. All organizations were happy to come out and be a part of the fair.
“The purpose of having this health fair is because when we go out to see patients, we see that sometimes there’s a lack of resources,” said Tara Malcolm, president of business operations for Trusted Care Home Health.
“There’s a lot of senior citizens or caregivers that are taking care of sick individuals that don’t know all the resources that are out there to help them. So, I got together with our social worker … and the health department to see all the benefits for seniors that are out there to bring it all into one place,” Malcolm said.
Trusted Care has put on senior events before, but this is the first event of this magnitude — more than 48 partners gathered to hand out free information and offer their services.
Seniors in attendance at the Trusted Care’s first senior health and wellness fair at the Imperial Valley Mall were treated to live entertainment in addition to information on resources. The event was Thursday, Feb. 12. | SOPHIA GAXIOLA PHOTO
“They (seniors) can get all the help and information they need, whether it’s food, transportation, healthcare, home health and also fraud (prevention). Fraud is prevalent here in the Imperial Valley, so we brought adult protective services … to educate the public,” Malcolm stated.
Besides informational booths, the fair had activities to entertain the crowd, such as a raffle and live entertainment.
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“I just happened upon this as I was doing some shopping,” said Damian Duarte, a resident of El Centro. “I heard the music so I came over. I’m picking up some information for my 80-year-old dad.”
“I’m satisfied because I found a new doctor to go to,” said Kathy R. from Imperial.
Malcolm and the Trusted Care team were overwhelmed with gratitude for both the public and organizations that turned out, with Malcolm stating, “The amount of people that reached out that wanted to be a part of this event to help the community, and the amount of community that is here today … I just want to thank everybody — my wonderful team … everybody that came out here today, and all the partners that made this possible.”
