Hundreds attend Wellness Day

Wellness Day is a day to provide education on disease prevention and to promote healthy activities and habits for the wellbeing of Akwesasne residents. This year’s Wellness Day celebration was held for the second time at the First Americans IGA on Route 37. Festivities included a barbeque, karaoke contest, balloon animals and inflatable jumping houses for the kids, many raffles and games, as well as a variety of complimentary health screenings.

Many tribal health offices and hundreds of community members came out for the event, including Loralee Lafrance, the informational coordinator for the Office of the Aging. Ms. Lafrance has been coming to participate in Wellness Day for the past 5 years and was very impressed with the community support and very proud because of the comments from the other participants who were amazed by the number of groups represented. At the event, Ms. Lafrance felt that she was able to reach out to a larger audience about services offered by her office and health insurance programs, and was able to help steer them in the right directions. She also enjoyed listening to the Karaoke contest because they were really good and many had a difficult time distinguishing contestants from the radio.

Wellness Day is a day to promote healthy wellbeing in the community of Akwesasne in a way that generates healthy living year round. Overall, participants felt that it was a very successful day and are looking forward to next year’s event.