The 14th annual Health Fair presented by The Community Health Ministry Team (CHMT) is set for Saturday, Aug. 5, with organizers planning for a big crowd.

Last year’s event held near the United Methodist Church in Mexico overwhelmed organizers who had only planned for a maximum of 500 kids. Instead more than 700 children showed up to take advantage of the services.

“We were running about 300 to 350 kids for a while,” one of the event organizers Jim Johnson told the Ledger. “If we’re going to do 700 kids again, I won’t call it a back breaker but we’ll be busy for a while.”

The CHMT in the past used to host the health fair inside the Methodist Church but when the global pandemic struck in 2020 it changed the way the group was able to operate. The fair would bring kids inside the church and pair them up with doctors for screenings and referrals for things like dentistry, vision, and hearing.

“To sweeten the pot we would give them a bag of school supplies,” Johnson said. “Pencils, notebooks, crayons, and all of this stuff plus a backpack, and all of this was no cost to the kids. Then COVID-19 came up and reared its ugly head and the last few years we haven’t been able to do the health checks simply because of health regulations and guidelines.”

The last couple of years the health fair turned into a drive-by with volunteers using a city parking lot to hand out supplies. Although health screenings are not done the health department has still handed out things like hand wash and toothpaste in the past.

“Taking them inside a church and keeping them at a six-foot distance is just kind of impossible,” Johnson said.

At last year’s event organizers ran out of backpacks by 10:30 a.m. Organizers began taking names and addresses and over the next couple of weeks, the additional supplies were delivered.

Although many restrictions have been lifted the CHMT is still doing the drive-by with the hopes the health screenings will return as soon as next year. Johnson said that depends on what the health department can do.

“It’s a lot of time and expenditures for public health to do it,” Johnson said. “It takes them a lot of people to get their stuff set up right. They’re going to have to be the ones who do the heavy lifting on that.”

The CHMT is a nondenominational group and any child from K-12 can participate in the health fair.

“If they need help we’re here to help them,” Johnson said.