BUOY to host its first Umbrella of Wellness fair on May 12

Date: 5/2/2022

BELCHERTOWN – To help raise awareness about mental health, substance use and overall wellbeing, Belchertown Understanding Obstacles in Youth (BUOY) is hosting its first ever Umbrella of Wellness fair on May 12.

Cara Caron, the community engagement coordinator with Belchertown Public Schools, said the goal of the event is to raise awareness about health in the community.

“We are a substance use prevention group and we have a Drug Free Communities grant. With that we have been trying to work on some ways to get our message out to the broader community so we decided we would work on an event that encompassed all aspects of health rather than just substance abuse and make it really inclusive to everyone in town,” she said.

Caron said people can expect a variety of events during the fair.

“We’ll have resources there, there will be some giveaways, we are having some raffles that have been donated by businesses in the Belchertown, Palmer, Hadley area, food trucks will be there – a couple of fan favorites from town – and then the event part of it is our speaker who is Nathan Harmon, he is an international speaker and is really well known,” she said.

Details were not yet available regarding what Harmon will be speaking about at press time, but Caron said it will be a positive message appropriate for children of all ages.

Caron said she hopes the fair provides a different kind of event for residents.

“We’re hoping for a good turnout but it’s hard starting a new event in a town that has so many set events already – the Belchertown Fair is so big, and they have the food truck festival – so we really wanted to try to do something that’s different and has a different topic,” she said.

“I think our biggest thing is we want to provide something that has never been done before. Our biggest thing too, working within the schools and working within the town we hear people saying they don’t know what resources are out there and they feel a little bit lost, so we wanted to be able to put all those resources together and have a nice setting, so people didn’t have to seek them out on their own,” she said.

Fair goers will not have to spend any money to enjoy the event.

“Everything is completely free; we are also offering chips for food trucks so every participant if they check in at the main tent when they get there will be given a $10 chip that can go toward $10 of food at any of the food trucks that we’ll have there. They’ll be given a raffle ticket and that will be for any of the door prizes we have,” Caron said.

In terms of the raffle prizes, people can win gift cards, goody bags and more.

Caron said BUOY has been working as a full group for about a year after the group was initially funded two years ago.

“Our main focus is on reducing youth substance use in town, so we have done things such as compliance checks, we have helped people put up required signage for things like tobacco. It seems like it was kind of a sleepy town where these things weren’t really being prioritized so we wanted to make sure these stores have what they need,” she said. “We are really about prevention and education, we are not coming through with any punitive punishments or acting like what we know is going on, we just want to educate them.”

Caron said BUOY also sent home a flyer with students about safe storage for medication as a part of Drug Take Back Day and parents could sign the bottom of a flyer to be entered into a raffle for secure medicine storage chest.

BUOY’s first Umbrella of Wellness fair takes place from 5 to 8 p.m. on the Belchertown Common on May 12.