Agencies team up to bring free healthcare resources to Moncrief neighborhood

JACKSONVILLE — More than a dozen organizations and agencies teamed up to bring health resources to a community that may not have regular access otherwise.

“We’re here serving our community,” Joan Williams, President of the Gamma Rho Omega Chapter of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, said.

The Stay Well Community Health Fair set up shop Saturday at the Clanzel Brown Community Center to provide mammograms, COVID-19 testing and vaccines, and other medical information to anyone who wants it.

Folks like Cynthia McNair learned more about their own health problems.

“I have stage three kidney disease, and I’m trying to find out information on what to eat, what to drink,” McNair said.

She said she’s visiting every booth.

“It needs to be every weekend because we have so many senior citizens that don’t know what to do, where to go; and they can just come to places like this to get that information like I do,” McNair said.

Local doctors said there is still a racial disparity when it comes to vaccine numbers, and that starts with making the shot available in these communities.

“Like the vaccine. We have them located in the Publix and the Walmarts and the Walgreens and people say ‘hey that’s a lot of places.’ But you don’t find a Publix and a Walmart probably 10 square miles from here,” local physician Dr. Rogers Cain said.

A major goal of the fair was to get more people vaccinated, but also to get people like McNair the help and information they need to live a full, healthy life.

“So I can keep living, keep going,” McNair said.

At this time there is no information on when another fair will be held.

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