On a cold and rainy Saturday morning, families brandished their umbrellas as they huddled underneath two lines of canopies at Hoover Street Elementary, 2.5 miles north of University Park Campus, for the school’s annual health fair in collaboration with the Community Health Involvement Project and the YMCA of Metropolitan Los Angeles. 

There, they listened to representatives from health-related organizations speak about where to get inexpensive groceries, how to detect signs of asthma and more. Between the canopies stood a tent for children to draw, hula-hoop and learn about healthy eating.

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CHIP, a group of USC students who plan health-focused outreach in downtown L.A., focused on reaching out to L.A.-based health organizations to attend the event. 

The booths varied in focus, with some dedicated to entertaining kids with science experiments and others helping adults sign up for food assistance programs, but they were all “united through a passion for health awareness and health education,” said president of CHIP Jai Mehrotra-Varma, and a junior majoring in human biology. 

About 30 organizations braved the rain and showed up to the health fair on the school’s blacktop. The school’s auditorium was used to distribute free food and as a playplace that featured hockey, Connect Four, ping-pong, basketball and soccer.

“There are a lot of free health resources and nonprofits that are doing a lot of amazing work but a lot of time it’s difficult to connect these resources with members of downtown LA,” Mehrotra-Varma said. “These types of events really allow an opportunity to get these individuals connected.”

At the end of the blacktop stood the “Asthma Breathmobile,” an asthma and allergy RV from the L.A. General Medical Center colorfully decorated with drawings of students playing in the sunny outdoors. The mobile clinic goes directly to L.A. Unified School District elementary schools to help children with asthma and their families. 

Fatima Santos, a registered nurse who works the Breathmobile, said despite coming back year after year, her team still finds students who have untreated asthma. 

“They kind of forgot how to be able breath normal,” Santos said. “They think having shortness of breath, wheezing, chest tightness is normal to them. And as soon as they see the difference, they’re able to live a happier life.”

Santos said that while attending events like the health fair is important, the most effective way to get people to come to the Breathmobile is through parents talking to other parents.  

“Our presence and just communicating and doing the fairs really does also help, too,” Santos said. “I’ve been coming to this school for so long and you would think, ‘Oh, most everybody knows you.’ And then you realize, there’s always that one parent that goes, ‘I never knew you guys were here’ … and then we’ll be like, ‘Yea, we’ve been here. We can definitely help you.’” 

Standing between the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children booth and the New Economics for Women booth was a bright orange table for Brightline. 

Adriana DeFranco, a community engagement lead at Brightline, told attendees about a new program called BrightLife Kids, which provides California residents with free behavioral health support for parents, caregivers and kids. 

Franco said the service is only offered online and parents can access the bio of the coaches beforehand before deciding which one to talk to.

“[As] parents, we are all overwhelmed about life,” Franco said. “You know you have kids and taking care of all of your needs and working, sometimes it’s hard to know whatever [health services] are out there … I’m very grateful they invited us [and] provided us a space.”

Roxana Rodriguez, an administrative assistant at Cedars-Sinai, said this was her first year coming to the health fair. She liked the BrightLife Kids booth and attended the health fair with her 11-year-old daughter who goes to Hoover Street Elementary. Rodriguez said the fair could help inform Angelenos about underutilized mental health care programs, especially Latine and undocumented people who might not be aware of resources available to them.

“In Hispanic culture, they don’t really believe in mental health,” Rodriguez said. “So, when the kids go through stuff, it’s like, ‘They’ll just shake it off.’ Which is something that no, you don’t just shake it off. You got to know how to talk to them and most of these programs are very important to give you the tools.” 

Rodriguez’s daughter’s favorite booth was the Mother’s Nutritional Center because it handed out free fruit, but she convinced her mom to take her to the health fair in hopes of winning a pizza party for her entire class. 

This year, the health fair included a passport system that encouraged attendees to gather ink stamps from booths they visited. Collectors could exchange a completely full passport for a raffle ticket.

The event organizers raffled away basketballs, footballs, strollers and various electrical appliances. The top prizes of the day — based on the children’s enthusiasm levels — were five bicycles donated by volunteer-run community bike repair shop Bikerowave. 

After the coronavirus pandemic, the fair was held at USC for one year before moving back to Hoover Street Elementary.  

“We got the word out, we still had a great turnout, and we’re excited for next year because we know it’s going to be bigger and better,” said Jennifer Ahumada, the community outreach coordinator of CHIP and a senior majoring in health promotion and disease prevention studies, and applied biostatistics and epidemiology.