BY JERI DAVIS
STUDENTS HOUSED
Reno-Sparks NAACP Health Committee Chair Janet Serial discussed the organization’s various health care initiatives.
According to a press release, the University of Nevada, Reno, has arrived at an agreement with two property companies to lease needed living space for students during the 2020-2021 academic year. Both properties are near campus and were built with students in mind. The first, called Canyon Flats, will house approximately 506 university students and residential staff. The second, Uncommon Reno, will house approximately 330 university students and residential staff. Nye Hall, which was taken offline after the July 5, 2019 Argenta Hall explosion, will reopen in August 2020, providing an additional 530 beds to students. Argenta Hall is planned to reopen in August 2021. The combined payment under the lease agreements for Canyon Flats and Uncommon Reno will cost approximately $10.1 million for the academic year. According to the press release, this “amount will be paid primarily from insurance proceeds,” and “housing rates will remain consistent” with the school’s currently published rates.
PHOTO/JERI DAVIS
for speakers to delve into the specifics of what their organizations do.
SPEAKING UP
—JERI DAVIS
V-DAY WRAP UP Depending on who you ask, Valentine’s Day is the holiday to celebrate love, the people who share in it and the beauty of romance, or a made-up, corporate holiday designed to increase consumer spending. Whether it be jewelry, chocolate or the iconic red rose, there are plenty of gifts to buy every year, and, according to the National Retail Federation, consumers spent more in 2020 on the holiday than in years past—$27.4 billion to be exact, up from $20.7 billion in 2019. After Feb. 14 passes, though, those same gifts still line the shelves of stores everywhere. Stores like Walmart, CVS and Walgreens are left with the task of trying to sell the Valentine’s Day-themed gifts they set out weeks in advance. With so much money spent on the holiday already, it can difficult to convince shoppers to buy stock that has seemingly already hit an expiration date. One of the ways of clearing all of the remaining stock is to put it all on clearance. Deals up to 50 to 80 percent off help move items off shelves so typical inventory can replace it. And buyers respond to the sales. Websites and blogs like allthingstarget.com (an independent website not affiliated with but reporting on Target) discuss expected sale dates and include recommendations for items that can be kept for future Valentine’s Days or incorporated into gifts for upcoming holidays like Easter. Some companies are coming up with other strategies to ensure they can save themselves from having to get rid of purchased stock. Releasing items that aren’t specific to the holiday is one way of doing this, like candy that’s more brand than heart-shaped-box focused. Go to Walmart, and you’ll see displays of cookies and baked goods that are indeed red and pink but don’t scream Valentine’s Day in the slightest—especially when placed on a spring-themed table alongside newer seasonal items.
—KIRK GELLER
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02.20.20
State of health Reno-Sparks NAACP hosts new annual symposium to discuss health care On Saturday, Feb. 15, the Reno-Sparks branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People held its first annual African American Health and Environmental Justice Symposium at the University of Nevada, Reno. The event brought together a diverse group of speakers who discussed topics ranging from health care workforce diversity to Alzheimer’s Disease and dementia in the black community and disproportionate impact of environmental injustice and climate change on communities of color. After opening remarks from RenoSparks NAACP Second Vice-President Patricia Gallimore, the branch’s health committee chair, Janet Serial, took the stage to discuss the organization’s national health initiatives and how they’re being pursued locally. These initiatives include HIV and AIDS education and prevention, tobacco prevention, child health and wellness, and chronic disease prevention and management. After discussing the branch’s work in these four areas, Serial told the audience that the point of the symposium was to spark broader community engagement
in those issues through work with local black faith-based organizations and participating agencies. “We will be spinning up campaigns,” she said. “The goal of this symposium is not just to come, gather, eat and leave. … This symposium is meant to be a call to action.” But with a late start, an absent keynote speaker who was supposed to discuss the 2020 U.S. Census, and turnout relatively low compared to other NAACP events, some in attendance expressed frustration. “I don’t see enough of the community here, and that is very upsetting to me—because we should be out advocating,” said NAACP member Quilistine Washington-Walker. “Churches—and I’m upset with us—because churches should be announcing these things so we know what’s going on in the community. … It’s up to us to be advocates for our own people. Come on. Wake up, please.” However, the intimate crowd size did allow time for attendees to ask questions of the speakers, who gave presentations and also participated in panel discussions—and also allowed time
First up among the speakers was Andrea Gregg, the executive director of the High Sierra Area Health Education Center, a federally and state funded 501(c)(3) nonprofit that works with under-served and rural populations in Nevada—working in collaboration with the UNR School of Medicine and the Office of Statewide Initiatives. The organization has staff based in Las Vegas, Reno and Elko and serves other rural counties as well. Its goal, Gregg explained, is to “increase diversity among health professionals, broaden the distribution of the health care workforce” and “enhance quality care and improve heath care delivery, focusing on rural and underserved populations” through educational programs that target K-12 as well as undergraduate and graduate-level college students. “We develop programs that cultivate this idea of pipelines for health care,” Gregg said. The programs include a “Healthcare Heroes Camp” with curriculum that can be tailored for kids as young as third to fifth grade or fifth to eighth and covers teaching kids about the body, various career paths they can pursue in health care and hands-on engagement in a range of activities dissection to orthopedic casting and audiology screening. “Through these targeted programs, it’s our hope that what we’re doing is really inspiring a young audience of students to get engaged in health care careers, get involved and recognize the benefits of being a health care champion in their communities—and then doing our part to really fulfill them and give them unique experiences so that they can help fill the state’s workforce needs,” Gregg said. The programs—from those for the youngest participants to the collegelevel—also focus on teaching culturally competent care. “So we’re talking about these ideas of adversity and diversity, cultural competency and implicit bias,” Gregg said. “So, what we do is we prepare and train aspiring health care professionals who are culturally responsive and are equipped to provide quality care in a multi-cultural setting.”
