By Susan Keaton
Last year I spent a sunny September Saturday greeting people at the doors of a Naperville mosque.
Many were entering a mosque for the very first time that day, but they weren’t coming for prayer services or to gain a better understanding of the Muslim faith.
Instead, nearly 200 people came to the Islamic Center of Naperville for free flu shots, blood pressure checks or blood sugar screenings. They came for informational sessions on preventing back pain or living with diabetes. They enjoyed healthy snacks and conversations with a dentist or physician.
No one was turned away, and no one was charged a dime (although the costs of flu shots were billed to the health insurance plans of those who had insurance). Indeed, the whole idea of the free community health fair, co-sponsored by ICN and Community United Methodist Church, the church to which I belong, was to draw in people who might be in need of medical care so they could learn about free services offered at the mosque year round.
Let me repeat that point: If you are uninsured, the ICN Free Clinic will provide you with general health and wellness care, annual physicals and specialty referrals at no charge and discounted lab work and medical tests. (Just call 331-213-2291 or visit the website, clinic.icnmasjid.org, to make an appointment.).
The clinic offers its “quality health care to anyone without insurance, regardless of race, religion or political affiliation” on the first Sunday of each month, from 9 a.m. to noon, and the third Wednesday of each month from 7 to 9 p.m.
Most of the clinic’s initial patients heard about it through the mosque, however, so the ICN partnered with Community church, one of the oldest Christian congregations in Naperville, to get word of this amazing free resource to a larger audience.
Realizing that people who had never been inside the mosque might be nervous about going there, Community’s volunteers help staff the booths, serve the food and show people around.
If you’re one of those uncertain potential visitors, I encourage you to give the health fair a try. Visiting the west Naperville mosque is not much different from visiting any other religious institution or community center: scout troops meet there, kids learn martial arts or play basketball in the gym, friends greet each other in the hallways or parking lot and share news of their families.
Last year, 19 health fair visitors subsequently became clients of the ICN Free Clinic, which was “the first time we have started to see non-Muslim patients,” said Dr. Atif Fakhruddin, one of the clinic’s founders.
So this year, organizers are getting greedy – we want more people to come to the health fair so even more people learn of the free clinic. We’ve expanded the fair’s hours, added services, increased the volunteers and scheduled more seminars.
This year’s event is from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sept. 8 at the ICN, 2844 W. Ogden Ave., Naperville. Like last year, those 16 and older can receive flu shots, blood pressure checks, blood glucose monitoring and oral cancer screenings and can visit booths to talk with orthopedists, social workers, dietitians or even to get a brief physician consultation if any of the screenings reveal concerning results.
This year, you can also get a vision screening, a weight management consultation and a mini massage. Health care practitioners will offer nine different hour-long discussions on such topics as general fitness, preventing heart disease or managing diabetes with a healthy diet. Even if you have insurance and visit a doctor regularly, you shouldn’t miss this opportunity to chat with orthopedists, dentists, optometrists, social workers, weight management experts, nurses or physicians.
It’s also an incredible opportunity to meet some of our neighbors and learn how they are helping the community. And the snacks are great!
Last year as I stood outside the mosque, ICN members were filling two school buses that would take them to a Chicago protest against Muslim genocide in Myanmar. Between greeting health care visitors, I chatted with some of the people preparing to leave for that effort, learning about violence in another part of the world that had not made its way into my consciousness previously. It was a sobering day.
It also was a joyous one. One man told me how grateful they were to see so many volunteers from my church, to which I responded with our gratitude that they offered free medical care in the first place.
“But it’s not ours to give away,” he said. “The air we breathe, the food we eat, our care for each other — these are all things we try to put a price on, but they are all free, and we should share them with each other.”
Susan Keaton is a writer and editor (and collectibles dealer) who lives in Naperville.
This article originally appeared on chicagotribune.com
