Christina Lee, Head Photography Editor

Tables offering blood pressure screening, voter registration and career guidance were assembled in the parking lot at Cornell Scott Hill Health Center, or CS-HHC, on Thursday to connect community members to nonprofit organizations. 

In celebration of National Health Center Week, the center invited local nonprofit organizations to promote their services to the center’s patients and staff at the annual resource fair. 

Robin Moody has served as the community outreach manager of CS-HHC for three years. In Moody’s first year of organizing the fair, it solely took place at the center and began with about nine vendors. Now, the fair also runs at the Dixwell Community House, hosts a growing number of vendors each year and has added festivities such as a live DJ set. 

Moody hopes that sharing resources will help people discover support programs and agencies suited to their needs, including those at the center. 

“We bring them into their community to meet them where they are,” Moody said. 

Attendee Lisa Wilson stumbled upon the event on her way out from the Health Center. A resident of New Haven for 10 years, Wilson noted that seeing nonprofits and organizations come together makes her more hopeful for the city’s future.

Elsy Sacaza, the senior patient advocate at CS-HHC, lauded the event for getting “better and better every year” for the past three years she’s been at the center. For Sacaza, the fair provides an opportunity to inform the community about the center’s patient advocacy department and protocols for medical complaints. 

Among the many nonprofits present at the fair was the Yale Cancer Center in partnership with the Center for Community Engagement and Health Equity, or CEHE, within the Yale New Haven Health Smilow Cancer Hospital. Imran Saeed, the program coordinator, explained that the fair provides an opportunity for the center to provide cancer education, information and outreach.

“It’s really important for us to be out in the community to show people that we’re here, we’re accessible,” Amelea Lowery, the outreach manager at the CEHE, said. 

First-timers at the fair like the Women and Families Center, a sexual assault resource agency, echoed Saeed’s sentiments. Isabella O’Brien, the center’s community educator, explained that she hopes people will turn to the organization in times of need. 

The goal, O’Brien explained, is to assure that people “know they have options when they’re in crisis.”

Looking ahead, Moody hopes to make the fair more interactive and offer attendees more live activities such as dancing.

This year, National Health Center Week lasted from Aug. 4 to 10. The CS-HHC postponed their fair due to inclement weather.