Project Prevent 10/18/08
Project Prevent Health Fair is a fair designed to help Baltimore residents become more concious of their health. I was put in charge of sign-in, so I sat at the front door handing out tickets to people and explaining the process. Each person would take a ticket, and visit five health-awareness stations. What these stations do, I’m not exactly sure. Afterwards, they would be able to get free food and enter a raffle. Children were able to get their face painted, and get balloon animals.
Personally, I didn’t get too much out of the experience, because I wasn’t able to interact with others. Most people who came in seemed very anxious to get to their destinations, but also came in confused as to what they were doing. They were in a hurry when I gave them directions, and lost after they started walking down the hall. I ended up condensing my speech to something like “Follow the arrows. Come back to enter the raffle with your ticket.”
The people who were cooking food ended up cooking in a doorway of the building. Smoke started to fill the halls, and despite me informing them of this, no one did anything about it. Part of me hoped the fire alarm would have gone off. So much for trying to keep people healthy.
Another problem I had was that I was told I would have to get on a later bus because they had to take the Hopkins a capella group home first (they had come to sing for the residents). The two other volunteers and I were annoyed because we had been there for much longer, and felt cheated and not appreciated. It may have been the wrong way to handle things, but together, the other volunteers and I protested by boarding the bus while everyone else was taking a group photo. We did manage to squeeze on at the end. I guess the lesson to learn and to take into my own events is to make sure the volunteers feel appreciated, especially the ones who have been there the longest.
One good thing thing did result from the event though: I did manage to get free food.