Suffolk County Farm hosts Bloom event
Bloom, a free event focused on community health and wellness, takes place this week at the Suffolk County Farm and Education Center in Yaphank.
Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County, the event’s organizers, have this year partnered with 100 Hispanic Women of Long Island to ensure the participation of an expanded number of Spanish-language resources and vendors who specialize in various aspects of health-related education and services.
Bloom is scheduled to take place from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, May 6 at the farm located at 350 Yaphank Ave.
Bloom vendors aim to provide Suffolk residents with information and services relating to nutrition, breast cancer prevention, stress management, diabetes education, health checks, goat yoga, and more. Some of the participants include the Hispanic Counseling Center, East End Disability Associates, New York Life, Long Island Latino Teachers Association, and the Adelphi Statewide Breast Cancer Hotline and Support Program.
The event, titled “Florecer” in Spanish, is designed to appeal to the entire family, with food vendors, farm animal interactions, and hayrides running throughout the day.
Some 207,000 Suffolk residents speak Spanish at home, a figure amounting to roughly 14 percent of the county’s population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Spanish speakers in America often lack easy access to healthcare, which it attributes in part to the language barrier, according to a 2020 report from the Brookings Institute.
“CCE Suffolk and our partners have a plethora of health and wellness information to share, though it can sometimes be a challenge to reach Hispanic communities because of linguistic hurdles,” Vanessa Lockel, executive director of CCE Suffolk, said in an organization statement. “This partnership with 100 Hispanic Women of Long Island allows us to make one of our largest wellness events more accessible to the whole of Suffolk County, bringing health education and fun to more residents than ever before.”
