HealthStreet’s Night of Dance: Continuing a thriving partnership between our community and UF

An Evening to Remember

On Aug. 20, 2016, UF HealthStreet hosted an event with the community in the heart of Gainesville: Night of Dance at Bo Diddley Plaza. This was an amazing celebration of our community’s diversity, creativity, and road to improved health.

500 people attended the event, and not only enjoyed the fun activities and dancing, but had tangible access to health education and screenings provided by about 40 tabling organizations. Some of the organizations included the Alachua County Library District, Alachua County Department of Health, UF Center for Arts in Medicine, UF IFAS Family Nutrition Program, the Equal Access Clinic Network, and the UF Mobile Outreach Clinic, Gainesville Health and Fitness and UF Pain Research and Intervention Center of Excellence.

The City of Gainesville and  the Gainesville Community Redevelopment Agency supported the event’s mission. It was a lively convergence of people from all backgrounds coming together for a common cause: to better their community’s health through the art of dance!

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Ayodeji Otufowora, M.D., is an M.P.H. candidate in the University of Florida College of Public Health and Health Professions and also a volunteer with HealthStreet.

 


Jasmine Jones, the event emcee, is herself a community member in the HealthStreet program. “I enjoyed the event tremendously,” she said, “As a member, it meant a lot to me to be able to showcase what Healthstreet has to offer to the Gainesville Community.” Also in attendance was Michelle Vanderhoof, a student with the UF College of Pharmacy, who tabled with the UF Student National Pharmaceutical Association  (SNPHA) to provide blood glucose screenings and HIV/AIDS education. Aside from the great amount of fun she had, she mentioned that the organization was able to reach out to a lot of people from the community.

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Dancing: It’s for everyone!

Professional dancers and fitness instructors volunteered three hours to instruct and inspire attendees to follow along to various styles, including: Zumba, Hip Hop, Latin, West African, and more. Many attendess found the dancing a fun and energetic way to combine health and culture — it became a way for people to understand that being healthy can be exciting!



HealthStreet: The road to a healthier community

The value of HealthStreet’s Night of Dance stems from the collaborative presence between the community and the UF Health Science Center. This event will continue to flourish year after year with the goal of increasing community’s trust in the University of Florida. It is this trust that encourages people to receive care at UF Health, and this trust that engages more people to participate in health research to assist in our university’s preeminence.

If you would like to be involved in the next Night of Dance event, please email Erick Edwing at eedwing1@ufl.edu! We hope you can join us!

 

Scroll below for event photography!

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Learn more about the organizations that joined us: