Highlights – Strengthening Community Ties

Environmental Health Educator Kristen Mitchell worked with Dominick’s Finer Foods to sponsor an essay contest for DuPage fourth and fifth graders on “Food Safety Begins with Me. How Can I Keep Foods Safe?” Winners Jonathan Christopher, Elizabeth Sullivan, and Christine McGivney won savings bonds donated by Dominick’s.

Health Department staff held a health fair April 7 to commemorate National Public Health Week.

Over 120 DuPage children whose families could not otherwise afford it received dental care from 11 dentists and their assistants, working on a volunteer basis to staff a 48-foot, fully equipped mobile dental clinic. Dental Health Services staff worked on the mobile clinic and arranged the June visit.

Ieva Pipyne, Assistant Program Coordinator, Behavioral and Mental Health Services, and her staff helped the Peer Club organize “Capture the Moment”, an August art show in which 24 artists, all mental health consumers, displayed 54 varied works.

Public Health Nurses were on hand to give immunizations at several Walgreens pharmacies during August as part of the Walgreens Immunization Program, a collaboration between Walgreens and four local health departments.

Nearly 450 participants attended the second annual Well Woman Conference on October 17 to hear presentations on heart health, breast health and depression. The Well Woman Conference is sponsored by the Well Woman Coalition chaired by Ruth Todd, Coordinator of the Breast and Cervical Cancer Screening Program.

Support from the Health Department helped the Naperville Chapter of the National SAFE KIDS Campaign become the DuPage County SAFE KIDS Coalition, cementing more national and local support. Liaison Jo-Ellen Courtney, Health Educator, announced that training more DuPage County people to instruct others on the proper installation of car safety seats was a priority.

AIDS Program Coordinator Elizabeth Johnson and her staff sponsored the Health Department’s seventh annual December 1 World AIDS Day essay contest. There were four countywide winners and 14 best of school winners, all seventh and eighth graders who wrote on the theme: “If we know how to avoid HIV infection, why are we still putting ourselves at risk?”

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