Laura Steele of Batavia came to the WellBatavia Festival Saturday morning to learn more about heath and wellness resources available in her community.
“I’ve come to this event before. I live just about five blocks from here, and so it’s easy to just walk over,” Steele said as she stood outside a vendor’s booth at the wellness event put on by the WellBatavia Initiative at the Peg Bond Center in Batavia. “I’m just looking to see about the different therapeutic options I want to know more about and I just love to see all the providers that are in the area and learn more about what they have to provide.”
Since 2017, the WellBatavia Initiative has been holding wellness fairs that, according to organizers, “try to get all the pillars of health that are within our community – all the different resources and put them on display so the community knows what is out there.”
A press release about the four-hour event noted that the festival offered “health services, holistic wellness, fitness, environmental and community health vendors.”
More than 30 groups and vendors were set to be on hand for the event.
Batavia resident Amberly Vaughan said she took over heading up the event a few years ago.
“I’m a physical therapist and everybody who is on the committee for the event tends to have some kind of health background. That’s what kind of drives it,” Vaughan said before the festival.
Vaughan noted that “10 to 15 NIU physical therapy students” volunteered for the event.
The event included a number of health care providers, including a speech therapist, an occupational therapist, mental health providers and more.
Vaughan said the fest is geared towards everyone, noting that organizers “made a big push last year trying to pull in resources for children.”
“We have community churches for spiritual help involved, plus the park district is out here with activities for the kids and different interactive games and trying to make this more fun,” she said.
Food vendors were also on hand at the fest.
Jamie Kruse of Batavia, owner of Torus Therapy, was a returning vendor who said her business offers mind, body and spirit healing.
“We try to tell clients we are more than our minds and the experiences that we have out there (in the world) affect all the parts of our body,” she said. “Not just our relationships, but our soul and we want to address all of that, so what we do is we work with rewiring the brain and we actually change who we are. And we offer services that support that change.”
Rob Walter of Batavia was checking out an e-bike display at the fest and said he had already visited a number of booths and had taken advantage of a few of the free services.
“I think having a whole-wellness thing for the community is a good thing,” Walter noted. “I’ve done the health screening already and am thinking about going to get the free spinal exam. We also went to the Batavia Park District and talked to those folks for a little while.”
Batavia Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Margaret Perreault said raising health awareness in the community is important.
“We are lucky to have people in our community that want to serve and help with spiritual, mental and physical health and we support them,” she said. “A lot of our chamber members have gotten involved with counseling or mental health organizations and help market these businesses that can help with stress and anxiety. It’s a great, unique Batavia festival.”
David Sharos is a freelance reporter for The Beacon–News.
