On Saturday morning, a few dozen vendors came out to Two Roads Wellness to participate in Danville’s first ever Health & Wellness Fair.
Offering information and services from chiropractor adjustments to midwifery services to breathwork and beyond, each vendor came with the same goal in mind: to spread the message throughout Vermilion County that maintaining mental health and well-being is both important and attainable.
“We wanted to join with people with like-mindedness and alternative thinking and just have everybody together,” says Laura Melecosky-Zachman, founder of Just Breathe Alternative Medical Solutions LLC.
The health and wellness fair was her brain-child, after she and her colleagues completed a program with The Trep School’s Trep on Track Business Bootcamp. The program is designed to “meet the needs of new entrepreneurs and existing business owners,” according to the website.
“We had to come up with a five-year goal,” says Melecosky-Zachman about how she came up with the idea for the fair. It only took her a year after graduating from the program to make her goal a reality.
“We had over a hundred vendors that I reached out to to try to get here,” she says. “I asked them to come here and team up with us and then get the word out and vendors just kept coming in.”
After finding enough vendors to participate, she says, she reached out to Jessica Nemecz, CEO of Two Roads Wellness to see about finding a spot to host the fair.
“She said ‘Let’s have it here. We have a great space here!’ and I’m like, ‘Yes, this is gonna happen!’ So it was kind of amazing,” says Melecosky-Zachman. “It hasn’t been easy but it came together and everything’s been flowing and wonderful and I just love it.”
Among the vendors in attendance was the Survivor Resource Center of Danville, which provides information and resources to survivors of sexual assault in the area.
“We’re here because [sexual assault] affects a lot more people than the community understands and we just want to make sure that people know that we’re here,” says Marcie Sheridan, director of the Survivor Resource Center.
“Sometimes they’re going through something that is the worst moment of their lives,” Sheridan said. “Whether it’s their child who’s been abused … we help parents as well — all free confidential services. We really just want people who need us to know about us. And we just love taking part in these things because we think it’s just a great community.”
If and when they are unable to provide services to their clients, the Survivor Resource Center has cultivated a rich network of other organizations to reach out to in order to get survivors what they need, says Sheridan.
“We often work together with Crosspoint. We work together with Two Roads [Wellness]. So it’s just nice to to know that there’s so much available because our clients sometimes need other resources as well,” says Sheridan.
As some visitors enjoyed interacting with the vendors and purchasing health and wellness support products from local businesses, some opted to take a time-out and practice breathwork with Hunter LaFave, owner of It’s In Your Head.
“We’re getting awareness of these sensations, really not labeling them as good or bad,” said LaFave during one round of rapid breathing.
Intentional, methodical, or rhythmic breathing, what LaFave and others refer to as breathwork is intended to help people develop improved relaxation, emotional control, and reduced anxiety and depression, according to an Italian study from 2018.
As LaFave led several rounds of different breathing techniques, a dozen or so participants joined in, including Daria Powell, who later took part in an impromptu sound bowl session with LaFave as her father looked on.
“She’s very good about this kind of stuff because we tried to kind of teach it to her younger, to try to help,” says Ryan Powell. “Her mom has moments where she kind of needs it, so we figured if it can help her mom, maybe it can help her, too.”
As to whether the Health & Wellness Fair will take place again next year, Melecosky-Zachman says that remains to be seen.
“We have made stuff that is able to be used again if we do it again,” she says. “We’ll see about where the road takes us.”