S4 E2 - Inside Black Men's Wellness Day and Uplift Her

Katie White [: 00:00:11

Welcome to Pretend I Know Nothing about. I'm Katie White, your host administrator of coaa. On today's episode, we will learn about Black Men's Wellness Day, and we'll hear from Antoine Hayes and Stephanie Andrews about how COAA is involved in this amazing, impactful community event. Well, welcome to the show. Antoine and Stephanie, thank you for being here.

Antoine Hayes [: 00:00:33

Thank you for having me.

Katie White [: 00:00:35

Sure. Let's start with introductions. Antoine, tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got here. Maybe a little bit about what you did before CRAA.

Antoine Hayes [: 00:00:43

Okay. My name is Antoine Hayes. I worked for COAA since September 2022. I am a system analyst here. Before I worked here, I was a system engineer for a company called Sound Communications. We used to install servers for all the Columbus 911s, Gahanna, 911, Westerv, pretty much all 911 from the east side of Mississippi river to the east coast. That's pretty much what I did. Traveled a lot.

Antoine Hayes [: 00:01:08

When I came here, I got sick of traveling. I wanted to be home with my kids more. And this job was opportunity for me to stay in central Ohio and see my kids and still make pretty good living. So that's why I chose the opportunity to come work here.

Katie White [: 00:01:20

That's great. So now do you miss traveling now that there's no traveling?

Antoine Hayes [: 00:01:23

No, I do not miss traveling at all.

Katie White [: 00:01:25

Okay, good.

Antoine Hayes [: 00:01:28

The money was a little bit better, but the far has been able to spend time with my family and things like that and my health. My doctor is the reason why I switched my job. My health was my problem at that job. It was just a lot of stress for me. And so my doctors wanted to tell me to switch. And once I switched, I've been happy. My health has been back fine. Now spend time with my family.

Antoine Hayes [: 00:01:46

So I'm very happy where I'm at now.

Katie White [: 00:01:47

That's amazing.

Antoine Hayes [: 00:01:48

Yes.

Katie White [: 00:01:49

Okay. And Stephanie, what about you?

Stephanie Andrews [: 00:01:51

Yes, I'm Stephanie Andrews. I have been with COAA since September of 2021. And prior to coming to cool, I actually worked for AAA 5 out of Richland County. So I've been in this game for a long time working with seniors. And I just switched to Columbus just for more opportunity, more diversity within the caseload. And so I'm happy to have had the switch and the opportunity to lead in other ways throughout the agency and this committee.

Katie White [: 00:02:24

Great. Well, thank you so much. So today we are going to talk about Black Men's Wellness Day a little bit about the history, the various events that Black Men's Wellness Day encompasses, because there's really a lot to it. And then I want to get into our committee work, what that looks like, and kind of just give a good overview so that listeners know how to get involved, the history of it and why it's so important.

Stephanie Andrews [: 00:02:53

So.

Katie White [: 00:02:54

So, Antoine, why don't you kick us off? Tell us just the background. What is Black Men's Wellness Day?

Antoine Hayes [: 00:02:59

Okay. Black Men's Wellness Day was started by John Gregory 2004. It is a 5k walk or run through the east side of Columbus, Ohio. The event started in Columbus, Ohio. Now it has expanded to 12 different cities nationwide.

Stephanie Andrews [: 00:03:12

Wow.

Antoine Hayes [: 00:03:13

So it is growing. Continue to grow. The event aims at bringing awareness about health disparities among black men and to promote wellness throughout the various programs. The event provides free health screening, including cholesterol, high blood pressure, kidney, hiv, psa. Those are just some of the screens you can get at the event.

Katie White [: 00:03:33

Wow. So you come to the event, there's the walk, but then there's all these screenings.

Antoine Hayes [: 00:03:37

Yeah. Screenings also event for kids as well. This is a family event. They're gonna have a certain station for kids where they can have slides and things like that. Should be hot, so they can slide on the water and slide. Things like that. Events for seniors as well. I'll talk about that a little bit later on.

Antoine Hayes [: 00:03:50

And they also have events for, of course, African or just males, period. Any male come out there and get your screening. That's really what really, really it's about.

Katie White [: 00:03:57

And are. Is there a specific goal or number of screenings they're trying to get to or, you know, give us an idea of how many screenings take place on that one day this year.

Antoine Hayes [: 00:04:06

They want. The goal is 5,000 screenings.

Katie White [: 00:04:08

Wow.

Antoine Hayes [: 00:04:09

They're. They're. That is a very high goal. But they actually have hit all their goals once. They. I think last year they had said a goal like 2500. They hit that. So this year went 5000.

Antoine Hayes [: 00:04:21

That's where they want to go. So they're. They're getting there. They're doing a pretty good job of getting people out. They want to get more people out, but they're doing a good job of getting people out and getting the numbers taken care of. That's the most important thing.

Katie White [: 00:04:32

That's great. So that's the main Black Men's Wellness Day walk. Stephanie, can you tell us a little bit about Uplift Her? That's another event associated with this.

Stephanie Andrews [: 00:04:42

Yes. So Uplift her is several years in, not as long as the walk. But, you know, women often are the backbone of Our men. And so we were making sure that our men were taken care of within the community. But then we're like, what about the women? Because the health disparities in women are just as grave as the men. And, you know, we poor of our white counterparts. So we want to make sure that we're taking care of the women. So it's an indoor event for the women where we also have the health screening, get your full A1C, check your cholesterol, also checking your weight, and then having those nurses on call to kind of walk you through those numbers and give you ideas on how to bring those numbers down if they're high.

Stephanie Andrews [: 00:05:28

And I mean, it's the best time you'll ever have, you know, a doctor's appointment for both men and women. So there's entertainment and you have speakers and celebrity guests that come through because this initiative is so important.

Katie White [: 00:05:42

It's so important. And give us an idea. What does COAA's participation look like in Uplift Her? I believe we had nurses and social workers there. What. What were we doing at that event?

Stephanie Andrews [: 00:05:53

So Melissa Gulteri here, who does our clinical innovations, she played a major role this year. She was able to connect with Molina and get them to donate blood pressure cuffs. So when people came in and their blood pressure numbers were high to a certain range, we were able to give them logs as well as blood pressure cuffs and link them to services here at CO AAA to help them stay on top of their numbers, find doctors, and make sure that they're staying within the guidelines that they need to healthier within those numbers. And so it was a major benefit this year for us to get Melissa and her team, and she's also taken that over to the Black Men's Wellness Day as well. So we are just entering in here showing how much we support our seniors, but yet also our community of all ages.

Katie White [: 00:06:43

Absolutely. And we care about reducing the disparities, Right?

Antoine Hayes [: 00:06:46

Yes.

Katie White [: 00:06:47

Do either of you want to talk a little bit about disparities? Are there any numbers or anything you want to share about that?

Antoine Hayes [: 00:06:53

Go ahead, Stephanie.

Stephanie Andrews [: 00:06:54

Yeah, so some of the numbers. One thing I will say is the best storytelling that I've heard, going to the meetings for the Black Men's Wellness Day committee as well as the Uplift her is that you have people coming out to these events who don't know that their numbers are high. And a lot of people will say, I just, I just went to the doctor last week. Not everybody went to the doctor last week. And so when they get these numbers done, they are finding that people need to be sent to the emergency room, to the hospital right away. And so they do have ambulances on, on site as well as doctors on site for those that aren't needing the emergency room, but able to go over to the doctor and receive certain medications just to hold them over until they're linked with the doctor through referral. And so, wow.

Antoine Hayes [: 00:07:45

Yes. You know, that's big.

Stephanie Andrews [: 00:07:46

And cancer within black women as well as prostate cancer in black men, kidney failure. I will share that. My brother in law, he's in his 30s and his creatine level was at a 4 in September. His doctor missed it. He's currently in the hospital with his creatine level up to A12 and is now on dialysis and needing a kidney transplant. It's very imperative that we know our numbers, that we're telling people what those numbers are, but also how to read them in case their doctors misses it so that they can go back to their doctor and say, hey, what about this number here? They need to know what these mean. Yeah, we get it in on my chart, but do we know how to read it and do we know what it means? And that's what Uplift her and Black Men's Wellness Day does.

Katie White [: 00:08:34

It's such an important clarification because you're so right. You go and you get your numbers, which is part one. So important. And I have a few thoughts on the amazing access that these events create for that. But yeah, I don't know what all of those numbers mean. Right. And so it's not only getting your numbers, but it's linking you up right there with that information that's so empowering to know. Are you in the range? Are you under the range? Are you outside the range? And it sounds to me like if you're really outside the range, there's immediate action.

Antoine Hayes [: 00:09:04

Yes. They have the medicine right there on site. That's what I like. Right there on site.

Katie White [: 00:09:08

Incredible. I did not know that. And I've been going for three years.

Antoine Hayes [: 00:09:11

Yes.

Katie White [: 00:09:12

So knowing those numbers are so important. Talk to me about the importance of making these events accessible, fun, trustworthy. Why is that so important for black men and black women?

Antoine Hayes [: 00:09:28

To me, this event is a big. I think it's big for seniors. I know it's called Black Men Buildings Day, but from what I've seen, they concentrate a lot on seniors as well. I think this is a big, big event. Big day for seniors as well. Uarc, which stands for Urban Aging Residents Coalition, was founded by PAM Shields in 2020 and the initiative of that program is basically to enhance the health of black seniors in the community. So Pam and John, John runs the walk. Pam is over the seniors.

Antoine Hayes [: 00:10:02

They have known each other for 30 years. So they came together and when they came together, that really is a big part of the black man. Well, is the seniors. They don't call them seniors. They call them golden citizens is what they call them, or distinguished gentlemen. They don't like being called seniors, so.

Katie White [: 00:10:18

That'S what they really do. Distinguished gentlemen. No, that's a new one for me.

Antoine Hayes [: 00:10:20

That's a new word this year that Ms. Pam Shields with is called distinguished gentleman's because the seniors did not let be called seniors. Yeah, so that's a new word for them. But that part right there I think is very key because when they got together, that allowed COAA and the committee to get involved and that's where we come and play at. I feel like in 2022 that's when we started working closely with Pam and we sponsored the Senior Pavilion during the Black Men's Wellness Walk. The Senior Pavilion is like a location for seniors to come and hang out during the walk. Members of the CO AAA committee help UARC set up the stations at nighttime before the event. So then in the morning time, once the event takes place, the seniors can go to their stations.

Antoine Hayes [: 00:11:05

And each station usually has volunteers from coaa. They're helping the seniors out. Once they get to their station, they can win prizes and also play games at their stations. That is a big. That happens while the walk is going on because most seniors probably can't walk 5k. So while the walk is going on, if you cannot walk, most seniors cannot walk that 5k. They have extra activities going on provided for the seniors to have fun while the walk is taking place.

Katie White [: 00:11:34

That's great. So it sounds like this event truly kind of comes from the community and continues to evolve and identify new needs and then meet those needs.

Antoine Hayes [: 00:11:44

Yes, this event definitely is a community event. It's a family event. This event def. We want kids out, we want grandmas out, we want grandfathers out, we want everyone to come out. It's just not just about African American men. It may be called that, but we want everyone to come out. All families, all events. We have plenty of events for kids.

Antoine Hayes [: 00:12:04

Mid sized kids, older kids, adults, grandfront seniors. Everyone can come out and have fun. This is an event for everyone. Everyone.

Katie White [: 00:12:10

And it really is fun. I mean there's music, there's a million booths, there's all kinds of fun giveaways. There's Food. There's just about anything you could want on a Saturday morning to just go have fun.

Antoine Hayes [: 00:12:20

You can get it over with, too. It's only from 7 to 12, so, yeah. The rest of your day, do whatever you want to do. You can get it over with. Get your health taken care of and going about your day.

Katie White [: 00:12:27

Go home and take a nap, which is generally what I do, because it's real hot.

Antoine Hayes [: 00:12:30

Yes, yes. After a Friday and a Saturday of setting up and running around that Saturday afternoon, useless. This is a rest day.

Katie White [: 00:12:36

Yes, that's right. Stephanie, anything else that you want to add about the senior pavilion or about the Black Men's Wellness Day Walk?

Stephanie Andrews [: 00:12:43

I will say one of the things this year that is amazing that they thought of because they thought of black men being kind of afraid to go get their numbers and do their screenings because, you know, when you get in front of a pretty lady, you don't want to really tell the truth sometimes. Right. And so they really have reached out to male doctors and male nurses this year. They really want to make sure that the men are fully comfortable and confident in sharing the truth so that they can truly be helped on anything that they need. And I will say, this year, the screening area is literally right down the path from the senior pavilion. So even with the screenings that are being offered in the senior pavilion, like Antoine said, they have a kidney screening. They also have other screenings that are just down the walkway. They have golf carts to help seniors get down there.

Stephanie Andrews [: 00:13:38

So we really want to make sure that every. Everybody is utilizing all the screenings. Now, if you just want to do the screenings in the senior pavilion, that is okay, but there's also some other steps that you can take, and we can truly walk you down there or get you down there by Golf Cart. Ms. Pam is really innovative, and so she's come up with Bring Paw Paw to the senior pavilion. So the kids have a chance this year to win a bike. So if you bring grandpa to the senior pavilion and they do five activities, then the child gets entered into the bike raffle.

Katie White [: 00:14:12

Wow. That's amazing. Well, especially when we think about grandparents raising grandchildren, kinship care, all of that. Right. That's huge. And so. Oh, I love how she pulled that in. I think she also generally brings in scooters.

Katie White [: 00:14:25

Right. Judy's Scooty's is usually there. And those are like mobile scooters. Mobile scooters that people could come and utilize if they need that to kind of get around the event.

Antoine Hayes [: 00:14:35

Ms. Pam is very good at bringing, like I said, she Makes this event a family event. She takes to bring most of you to bring everyone to the event so everyone can have fun. So she's very good at including everyone into this event.

Katie White [: 00:14:45

She makes it a party, that's for sure.

Antoine Hayes [: 00:14:47

Oh, yeah. Ms. Pam, if you've known Ms. Pam or seen Ms. Shields, she's a. She definitely brings excitement and fun to the room.

Katie White [: 00:14:54

Yes.

Stephanie Andrews [: 00:14:56

And the senior pavilion is right next to the children's pavilion, so it's not that far away. We're right next door to each other, so it really melds well. And like I always say, you know, as being youth, our young adults are just adults. We need to look to our seniors, and we need to bridge that gap between our young and our older adults. And so this is a great way to kind of merge and have the kids bring grandpa over so that they're also seeing, like, there's stuff for seniors, but there's also stuff for us. And we can also still come together and make sure that we're taking care of each other.

Katie White [: 00:15:32

That's amazing. I love that. So COAA in 2022, started our. What was called the African American Male Wellness Walk, but it's rebranded now to Black Men's Wellness Day. But that is the year that we started a committee here. Is that right?

Antoine Hayes [: 00:15:50

Yes.

Katie White [: 00:15:51

Okay.

Antoine Hayes [: 00:15:51

Yes.

Katie White [: 00:15:52

And what does our committee do? Tell Antwon. Walk me through that. How often do you meet? What's the goal of it? Tell me a little bit about it.

Antoine Hayes [: 00:15:59

We definitely, for sure, meet at least once a month. And we kind of go over things, what we want to do in the very beginning, let's say, like in January, we will meet, and we have a meeting once a month, and we just start going over, talking to Ms. Shields on the plans of what she wants to do. That's really big. Get Ms. Shields involved and see what she wants to do. And we kind of take it from there. Once Ms.

Antoine Hayes [: 00:16:19

Shields lays out her plan of what she wants to do, then we say, okay, how can CLAA and the committee help you? And then she says, okay, I need you to do this, this, this, and this. And that's when we come back as a committee and come and ask for our volunteers. Okay, we have this now we need volunteers. Will you help us out? That's usually the role that SEAL Triple A Committee plays. We kind of just want to help Ms. Shields, and you are successful at this event.

Katie White [: 00:16:42

Got it. So we sponsor the senior pavilion. We come along miss Pam and see what she needs, and we support. And I assume we're doing a Lot of carrying of things and opening up.

Antoine Hayes [: 00:16:53

Tables and kind of packages and things like that. Care packages. We have tables that we, that we had. Like I said, once we're, we have, we have the senior pavilion, then right down from the senior is actually where our table is at our tents at. And that is where we can advertise stuff that COAA does as well.

Katie White [: 00:17:10

Got it, got it. Okay. And so you're meeting once a month just to kind of make those plans. But the committee also has an opportunity multiple times to speak to all staff or send messages about also putting together a walk team.

Antoine Hayes [: 00:17:23

Yes, we have a walk team. We have a passion team. We have a setup team. We have a volunteer team. The passion team is more of just people that just want to walk. The volunteer team is more for people that want to volunteer. And then the, what was it? The setup team is for people that want to set up. So let's say the day before, on that Friday, they can set up the tents and things like that.

Antoine Hayes [: 00:17:41

Or at night, at 9 o' clock at night, you can come down and you set up our tents as well. That's the setup team. Those are pretty much the teams that we have for this, for this event.

Katie White [: 00:17:52

Okay, Stephanie, roughly how many people are on the committee? And then about how many walkers are we thinking we'll have this year?

Stephanie Andrews [: 00:18:00

So on the committee, we were a committee of four. I'm sorry, we were a committee of five. And we also have two advisors, Yolanda Lewis as well as Melissa Galteri. And we have two of our committee members have moved on from the agency. So we are down to three committee members and two advisors. But we're still a strong and mighty team, definitely. And so one of the things that we also do to prepare for the walk is we get our swag bags ready to go so that we are prepared to hand out the information about how COAA can help those in the community. Because oftentimes many people don't know about us or they have a misconception about, oh, they're going to come in and then I'm going to lose my house.

Stephanie Andrews [: 00:18:50

And so we're able to actually talk with them, walk them through the different programs of things, of how we can help them. So the goal is to have as many walkers as possible. I believe at this point we may be at about 20. We've had 30 in the past. But I would really love COAA to have as many walkers as possible, 50 or more. I've told everyone that you don't have to just work for CO aaa. If you believe in our mission and what we do for the community, please join our Passion Team. Get in touch with us as well as workers.

Stephanie Andrews [: 00:19:25

Have your families come out? Have your children come out? My children have come out with me every single year since we started the sponsoring of the Black Men's Wellness Day and supporting the Senior Pavilion. And so I want whole families out there showing like we believe in what we do here at COAA and we believe in Black Men's Wellness Day and supporting our seniors.

Katie White [: 00:19:47

That's excellent. So how do you join the Passion Team? Or how do you sign up to walk? Is there registration? Is there a fee? What does that look like, Antoine?

Antoine Hayes [: 00:19:56

They could. The easiest way probably would be to go to the website, the agency, the African American agency website, and sign up. That way they have a Passion Team right on the front webpage. That's the easiest way to sign up for the event. There are other ways as well, but the easy way, I would say we go to the African American agency website and in that way, front page right there, to have Passion Team biggest day right there. You can add yourself to the team and let them know that you're going to be a part of the team.

Katie White [: 00:20:19

Okay. And do you register? Do you have to put in information? Do you have to pay to walk?

Antoine Hayes [: 00:20:22

No, you don't have to pay to walk. You can just walk in for free. You just let them know, your Passion Team. How many members are going to be on your Passion Team? And then that way they will know the people and then you can just show up with your shirts and you can walk for free.

Katie White [: 00:20:34

That's great.

Antoine Hayes [: 00:20:34

No charge or anything like that.

Katie White [: 00:20:35

Okay, so the Passion Team, I thought that you guys came up with that. Now I'm. Which I love it either way, but now I'm understanding there's all these different Passion Teams. You go to the website, figure out which Passion team you're walking with and sign up. And so the whole event really is free, it sounds like. That's incredible.

Antoine Hayes [: 00:20:50

This is all free. John is very big. John Gregory is the owner or the founder of the event, is very big on not charging anyone for anything. He wants everything to be free. His goal is just to get black African males out to this event because they did not go to doctors or anything like that. So he's trying to make it fun, but also take care of a serious issue.

Katie White [: 00:21:09

Got it. Thank you. What a genius.

Stephanie Andrews [: 00:21:12

I also just wanted to say for the Passion Teams, they don't have it to where you can find our team. So I think the best way, if somebody in the community wants to be part of our passion team, is to have them call COAA and basically then they can link them to Antoine or to myself and we can make sure that they're on that team and we get their information.

Katie White [: 00:21:38

Okay, so where is the event held? We've talked a lot about what the event is, the different pieces and parts of how fun it is. Where is it held this year? 2025?

Antoine Hayes [: 00:21:48

This year, the event is held at the Livingston park that is located right there at Livingston Children's Hospital. Right in front of Children's Hospital. Livingston. 18th is the location. It's called Livingston Park. That is actually where the event takes place at this year.

Katie White [: 00:22:00

Okay.

Antoine Hayes [: 00:22:01

This will be the last time the event takes place at the Livingston park because it has outgrown the Livingston park area. So they're looking for a new spot, but this is the last time it will be at the Livingston park because they have outgrown the area.

Katie White [: 00:22:13

That's amazing. And we've outgrown. I'm saying we. And we've outgrown it because roughly how many people came last year?

Antoine Hayes [: 00:22:23

I mean, what did they say, Stephanie? Last year?

Stephanie Andrews [: 00:22:26

What did they say? Over a hundred and twelve thousand. I could be off by that number. But the way that they find the numbers is through drones. The city sends out drones to measure the density, but they have definitely outgrown Livingston Park. So if you want to be a part of the historic where it all began, you want to make it this year, because you will not be able to do it again after this walk.

Katie White [: 00:22:52

I wonder where they can even find something bigger than that. I mean, that's a huge event.

Antoine Hayes [: 00:22:56

That's. That's what. They're already in the work. They're already talking to different city council members, things like that. Where. Where's the next location? Because they've already told them that this. They can't. They're just growing too.

Antoine Hayes [: 00:23:06

Too big. They can't block off enough street. They're blocking off too many streets now.

Katie White [: 00:23:09

Yeah.

Antoine Hayes [: 00:23:09

It's just that they just have to grow. They have to. They have been told they have to pick somewhere else. So they don't know right now, but they're definitely already looking for another place in the event. I just don't know where it's at right now.

Katie White [: 00:23:19

Okay. And you bring up a good point about working with city council. So there's so many elected officials, from city council to the county commissioners to state reps. You know, everybody really shows up and shows out at this event. And I think it's just so great and such a testament to everybody involved around making it accessible, making it fun, and making it impactful too. Know your numbers, connect people to the information and take action. Right there. That is so powerful.

Antoine Hayes [: 00:23:45

Yes. All three of those. And then what I like about it is you can get that done by 12 and you're done and you have the rest of the day, you can go take a nap, get back up and still do whatever you have to do. That's what I like about the event.

Katie White [: 00:23:56

Yeah, that's great. So my last question for you guys is, why is this important to you and Stephanie? We'll start with you.

Stephanie Andrews [: 00:24:05

Black Men's Wellness Day is important to me because it's a great opportunity to get out and get into the community, especially as a worker for COAA and working with our seniors, just being able to connect with them and get them connected to our services. Because there's so many, like you said earlier, Katie, that we do have grandparents raising grandchildren and my mother is a school social worker and she's run into issues where children are missing school because they're taking care of grandma or grandpa. But COAA can help them with that. We can get services in there so that child can go to school while we have professional taking care of their grandparents. They don't have to worry about it and they can focus on their schooling while we focus on their grandparents. And so I think that's the amazing part of what we do here at COAA is we always find wraparound services for everyone. And it's an honor to be able to assist in Black Men's Wellness Day as Well as assisting Ms. Pam and bringing her vision to life.

Katie White [: 00:25:08

Thank you.

Antoine Hayes [: 00:25:09

Okay. For me, the event is important because it allows CLAA to get out and become involved in the community. This event is important because it brings awareness to one of the biggest issues affecting my community. I'm a black African American male, which is our health. This event is important because it's an opportunity for black males to take care of their health for free and also be involved with their family and see their friends as well. So it's like a three in one. You can see your family, your friends, you see old friends, that once you get all in one spot and you can take care of your health. That's very important for me at this time in my life.

Katie White [: 00:25:46

Absolutely. And a huge shout out goes to both of you for all the work that you do. This is a year long buildup to the event and that in and of itself. I know you both have extremely busy jobs and taking the time out to do that. And then the days surrounding each of the events that we participate in is a lot too. So thank you so much for ensuring that this is well represented, that COAA is there, and that we're in the community where we need to be supporting the causes that we need to be supporting.

Antoine Hayes [: 00:26:20

Well, thank you for giving us the opportunity to support this opportunity to support this cause.

Katie White [: 00:26:25

You're welcome. Thank you both for being here.

Stephanie Andrews [: 00:26:27

Thank you. Kendi.

Katie White [: 00:26:31

I hope now you know something about Black Men's Wellness Day.