The Wright Center Celebrates National Health Center Week 2022

The Wright Center for Community Health will join with similar organizations and advocates across the United States next week in marking National Health Center Week, Aug. 7-13.

The observance provides an opportunity for the nation’s Community Health Centers to raise public awareness about the vital role they play in delivering affordable, nondiscriminatory health care to communities in need, including rural, high-poverty and other historically underserved areas.

Health centers provide comprehensive care to nearly 30 million patients at about 11,000 sites located across every U.S. state and territory. Collectively, these health centers save the nation’s taxpayers more than $24 billion each year through the prevention of emergency, hospital and specialty-care costs.

The Wright Center, which operates primary care practices in Northeast Pennsylvania, will celebrate this year’s observance with a series of activities that both reflect its mission and pay homage to the many constituencies on which Community Health Centers rely for their ongoing success: dedicated board members, employees, patients and community partners.

The Wright Center’s events include multiple community outreach activities in Lackawanna and Luzerne counties, many of them featuring the center’s mobile medical unit called Driving Better Health.

For example, the mobile medical unit will be used to conduct a COVID-19 vaccination and testing clinic from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 12, at Lackawanna County Courthouse Square in downtown Scranton. In addition to offering pandemic-fighting vaccines and boosters, The Wright Center’s employees will be on hand to distribute Narcan, an important tool in the effort to reduce drug overdose deaths amid the ongoing opioid crisis, and encourage voter registration through the Vot-ER initiative, a nonpartisan campaign to boost participation in the electoral process.

Other events to be held as part of The Wright Center’s observance of National Health Center Week:

• Driving Better Health appearance at the New Roots Heartwood Center, 100 S. Wyoming St., Hazleton, with COVID-19 vaccination and testing clinic from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Monday, Aug. 8. The Heartwood Center is a provider of homeless and recovery support services.

• Food bag distribution at The Wright Center for Community Health Kingston Practice, 2 Sharpe St., Kingston, from noon to 2 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 10, while supplies last. The limited number of free bags will be given on a first-come, first-served basis.

• Children’s Health Day activities to be held in conjunction with the weekly South Side Farmers Market, 526 Cedar Ave., Scranton, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 13. The Wright Center for Patient & Community Engagement will offer COVID-19 test kits, a limited number of free school backpacks and children’s art activities.

• COVID-19 vaccination and testing clinic with Driving Better Health vehicle at the newly opened Keystone Mission Transformation Center, 290 Parkview Circle, Wilkes-Barre, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Monday, Aug. 15. The clinic will be open to clients of the Keystone Mission program that serves homeless men as well as to the broader public, including residents of the neighborhood’s nearby public housing complexes.

For more information about The Wright Center’s National Health Center Week activities and other public events, visit its online calendar at TheWrightCenter.org/events.