Community health center event helps fund care for underinsured and uninsured
While food trucks and vendors were the main draw of the Jean B. Purvis Community Health Center’s first ever Food Truck Fundraiser Saturday, July 19, nonprofit booths also populated the space.
The event, a fundraiser for the health center’s community health-focused mission, also aimed to unite other nonprofits that had roots in health, according to one of its organizers, patient navigator Marissa Stenzel. Some of the other nonprofits present at the event included the National Alliance on Mental Illness, the Center for Community Resources and the PA Groundhogs.
“We all kind of share the nonprofit space here, so it’s important to have partnerships with them,” Stenzel said. “Something I wanted to do when I started planning was to get partners as vendors to be here.”
The Food Truck Fundraiser was scheduled to take place from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday in the Jean B. Purvis Community Health Center’s parking lot on Bonnie Drive. The event included food trucks, nonprofits, craft vendors and children’s games helmed by staff members of the health center.
The event was a good one for nonprofits in the area to attend because it helped connect them to one another to help fill community health needs in the Butler Community.
The PA Groundhogs was one organization at the event whose staff members used the opportunity to explain what the organization’s purpose is and how it accomplishes it. Carter Graves with the PA Groundhogs said the organization aims to prevent harm from drug use in the county and had drug testing strips and other materials available for people to take from the group’s booth.
As Graves explained, being part of the community is central to the Groundhogs’ mission of harm reduction.
“We do a lot of community outreach but being part of the community is an important way to gain that trust,” Graves said. “You’ve got to be part of the community, show that you’re part of it, so you can get to the people who need this stuff.”
Stenzel said proceeds from the Food Truck Fundraiser would support the health center’s mission to provide free health care to underinsured or uninsured individuals. Most of the money raised was from sponsors of the event, as well as the vendor fees. Stenzel said she had a goal to raise $5,000 through the event.
She also said the health center may bring the food truck event back next year if it reaches that fundraising goal.
“Most of our funding is from fundraising, grants, so we have enough to meet expenses,” Stenzel said. “I would like to make this annual if it goes well.”
