{"id":29601,"date":"2024-01-22T23:43:19","date_gmt":"2024-01-22T23:43:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/healthy-living-expo-draws-diverse-crowd-saturday-at-mcgee-park\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T06:59:52","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T06:59:52","slug":"healthy-living-expo-draws-diverse-crowd-saturday-at-mcgee-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/healthy-living-expo-draws-diverse-crowd-saturday-at-mcgee-park\/","title":{"rendered":"Healthy Living Expo draws diverse crowd Saturday at McGee Park"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Health
Health and wellness providers consulted with the public Saturday at the Healthy Living Expo in Farminton. (Brad Ryan\/Special to the Tri-City Record)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

The Healthy Living Expo,<\/a> which was held at McGee Park on Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., drew a solid crowd. The event was organized by the San Juan Partnership<\/a>, in conjunction with San Juan County and San Juan Regional Medical Center.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, it\u2019s been great. We\u2019ve already gotten more people than we expected. So it\u2019s been wonderful,\u201d said Amanda Evans, coordinator of San Juan Partnership. She said the 200 bags provided by the Farmington Museum and Visitors Bureau had been given out by noon. The count was around 250 adults and children.<\/p>\n

Evans said \u201cpeople have been really excited\u201d and have expressed appreciation for the event and all the information they\u2019ve gathered.<\/p>\n

The partnership plans to make the expo an annual event. Evans touted the many resources that are available in San Juan County. She said this is a \u201ckind of one-stop shop\u201d where people who may live out in the rural areas can find out how these resources can help them.<\/p>\n

Among the over 40 businesses promoting their products or services included were 100% San Juan County, Alternatives by Sharon, Capacity Builders Inc., Cottonwood Clinicals\/Ironwood Gym, Desert River Guides, Farmington Area Single Track, Gathings Community Gardens, It\u2019s a Wonderful Thing Paparazzi Jewelry, Mullen\u2019s Equestrian Services, New Mexico Breastfeeding Task Force, Overcomers Counseling LLC, San Juan Soil & Water Conservation District and Totah Behavioral Health Authority.<\/p>\n

Evans said her 16 years with the partnership has been rewarding, especially in their work with substance-abuse education and prevention. They offer youth programming, such as the dangers of vaping as it can lead to regular tobacco use. Alcohol and fentanyl abuse are concerns, so they\u2019re doing Narcan education for adults and youths. Since COVID, mental health and suicide prevention also are priorities.<\/p>\n

She said their data website, sanjuandata.org<\/a>, allows visitors to access data about the various health and wellness issues in the county.<\/p>\n

Rick Griffiths, extension family consumer science agent for New Mexico State University, was the partnership chairman was a key organizer of the event.<\/p>\n

\"The
The Healthy Living Expo was held for the first time at McGee Park. (Brad Ryan\/Special to the Tri-City Record)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cWe are very pleased with the turnout. I think we\u2019ve had a lot of great community participation, which we\u2019re very excited about, especially for this being a first-time event,\u201d said Griffiths.<\/p>\n

He expressed gratitude for all the vendors, stating that their support allowed them to invite the public without charging. The idea was, he said, \u201cto get many different parts of our community that are involved in health and wellness participating.\u201d<\/p>\n

Griffiths said it\u2019s important to understand that health and wellness is a \u201cvery broad topic,\u201d which includes physical, mental and even \u201cfinancial health.\u201d He mentioned the importance of outdoor recreation and how this event allows those businesses to \u201cshowcase\u201d their business.<\/p>\n

\"A
A variety of vendors presented their products and services Saturday at the Healthy Living Expo in Farmington. (Brad Ryan\/Special to the Tri-City Record)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

He said their goal is to \u201chelp everybody and to create a healthy mindset.\u201d<\/p>\n

Griffiths said they want to build on the success established this first year and \u201chopefully bring many of these vendors back.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the organizational efforts of the San Juan Health Council <\/a>began about a year ago. During the COVID pandemic they spent a lot of time in virtual meetings, with internal communication and focus.<\/p>\n

\"Brad
Brad Ryan\/Special to the Tri-City Record<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Griffiths said they realized the need to \u201creach out\u201d and \u201creally involve the entire community in health and wellness promotion, as well as, policy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Griffiths said they felt like the expo would help to \u201cbridge back into the community and bring more people into the discussion around health and wellness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Evans said the Health and Wellness Council, composed of more than 30 member organizations, meets the third Thursday of the month at the PMS Community Center, in the Merrion Oil and Gas room.<\/p>\n

Evans and Griffiths said they would love to have people show up and express what they feel is needed in the community. Griffith added that the same goes for organizations that aren\u2019t yet involved.<\/p>\n

For more information, contact Amanda Evans at 505-566-5867 or evansa@sjcpartnership.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

A number of nonprofit organizations and other service providers were represented at The Healthy Living Expo. They included:Presbyterian Medical Services. Overcomers Counseling LLC.KSJE 90.9FM.Capacity Builders Inc. Desert River Guides LLC.NMSU San Juan County Extension Office. Safety LLC.Life Care Center of Farmington. Amplified Therapy Inc. Ideal Option. Family First Chiropractic and Wellness Center LLC.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Dahlia Christen, with Everyone Deserves New Mexico, came from Santa Fe to share what their agency provides.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are helping people that are in rural areas, children, elderly and first responders,\u201d adding that they help others, as well, but that is their focus.<\/p>\n

Christen said their staff, all certified peer support workers, help with mental health and to connect people with services. She said there are 19 offices statewide.<\/p>\n

The agency has been around for about 35 years, with training provided by the Lifelink Training Institute<\/a>. \u201cAnd so we do grants and we work with peers.\u201d said Christen.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe help displaced individuals find their placements and we help people with addiction and mental health (issues) go into recovery,\u201d she said, adding that includes the \u201cchronically homeless and those with severe mental health issues.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd we\u2019re really trying to focus on the rural areas and elderly that just don\u2019t come to (take advantage of) services,\u201d Christen said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s great bringing all these different providers and vendors together for people to learn about. I\u2019ve learned a lot \u2026 I didn\u2019t know there was somebody locally growing mushrooms and soil conservancy, so yeah, it\u2019s been really interesting, said Lisa Renner.<\/p>\n

Renner, who\u2019s a community school coordinator at Animas Elementary, said she works \u201cwith some of these folks on different projects,\u201d including a community garden at the school in partnership with Gathings Gardens.<\/p>\n

Ryan Dudgeon, owner of Desert River Guides, said, \u201cwe\u2019ve been busy all morning \u2026 since 10 a.m. She said they brought a raft to let the kids play and a couch \u201cto chill out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dudgeon said they\u2019re looking forward to another great rafting season and we\u2019re actually gonna take this bad boy down the San Juan after the event at three o\u2019clock.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clayton Harrison, secretary of Farmington Area Single Track, said, \u201cI think the event is wonderful, a huge success. It\u2019s just really neat to see the community coming out \u2026 especially for the younger generation to get them active and out \u2013 away from their phones and video games.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a 2-year-old who\u2019d never been on the Strider bike come out and ride the course,\u201d said Harrison, adding that he was \u201creally excited.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been better than I expected. I didn\u2019t realize that we had this much interest in our community and outdoor activity,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"Farmington
Farmington Area Single Track offered a Strider bike experience to children. Brad Ryan\/Special to the Tri-City Record<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Meghan Ritz, a physician assistant and assistant director at the Metabolic and Bariactric Center at San Juan Regional Medical Center<\/a>, said \u201cI\u2019m actually pleasantly pleased with how many people have attended \u2013 two and a half-hours in and we\u2019ve seen quite a bit of foot traffic.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I love that San Juan County is doing a health expo \u2026 I think we certainly have a lot of improvement to make,\u201d said Ritz.<\/p>\n

Jeremy Gathings, owner of Gathings Gardens with 23 acres in Bloomfield, said they sell to the local schools and have a nonprofit section that donates produce that\u2019s not market ready to the Echo Food Bank.<\/p>\n

Gathings said they\u2019re also developing a gardening curriculum for the schools, with the first one being applied for a community garden at Animas Elementary.<\/p>\n

Christine Wright, a preschool teacher at Kirtland Elementary School, said, \u201cI think the turnout was wonderful. I\u2019ve seen so many kids and smiling families and families who are in need of resources like where can their kids get free preschool.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wright was demonstrating the sensory bottle or calming bottles, which help children when they\u2019re upset to relax, breath in and out slowly and watch the sensory bottle. She said it helps greatly with problem solving and anger management.<\/p>\n

Cheryl Duggan, who had just arrived, said she came to find out the resources that are available. She said, \u201cit\u2019s wonderful and I already have a bag full of goodies.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

community resource event hosts more than 50 vendors<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29602,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[799,28,61,976,443],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-29601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-farmington","tag-headlines","tag-health","tag-outdoor-recreation","tag-san-juan-county-new-mexico"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29601"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29601\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80798,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29601\/revisions\/80798"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29601"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=29601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}