A breast exam. An eye doctor. An STD test. These are all reasons someone on the South Coast might drive 25 miles to the nearest health clinic. Fortunately, anyone who comes to Puente’s inaugural community Health Fair on October 19 will have access to all those medical services – for free.

“There is so much need in the community for preventive services and screenings,” says Molly Wolfes, Puente’s Community Health Coordinator, who has organized the fair.

That will change for good once Puente and its partners at the San Mateo County Health System introduce a new mobile health clinic in 2015.

But in the meantime, the Health Fair will have nearly everything on offer, including Puente’s annual flu vaccination clinic, which will no longer occur during Dia de los Muertos. Professionals will be on hand for hearing tests, skin screening, blood pressure and diabetes screenings, family planning, and referrals for everything mentioned above. Information will also be available about health insurance coverage, CalFresh, and the many programs for which eligible South Coast residents can enroll at Puente.

Puente has invited a number of experts to present workshops as well as to lead exercise sessions on yoga and Zumba. Topics include spiritual health, disaster preparedness, repetitive stress injuries, and preventing harmful pesticide exposure for farm workers.

No Puente event would be complete without healthy snacks, and there will be plenty on hand for kids and adults. Thanks to Kaiser Permanente, Puente now has two blender bikes so attendees can take turns pedaling the blenders to make smoothies. Puente will also raffle off cool donated fitness gear.

Bike Rodeo

Kids will be happily entertained by a Bike Rodeo, courtesy of the San Mateo County Bike Alternatives Program, Peninsula Traffic Congestion Relief Alliance, Silicon Valley Bike Coalition, Siena Youth Center, and BikeSmart.org. Anyone who does not own a bike helmet will be given one to keep.

Puente needs your help to make the Health Fair a success. Before October 19, Puente needs to find an optometrist willing to donate four hours’ worth of free eye exams. Puente also needs two people who can help act as Spanish-English translators; a portable massage table; and additional volunteers to help cook healthy food the day before the Health Fair.

Contact Molly Wolfes to help: (650) 262-5989. The Puente Health fair is October 19, 11 a.m. – 3 p.m., Pescadero Elementary School Multi-Purpose Room, 620 North St.

At first glance, entire worlds seem to separate George Collyer and Patrick Letellier from the community of Latino farmworkers and working mothers who form a large portion of participants in Puente’s programs. They’re a gay couple residing in a gated enclave in outer Pescadero.

George Collyer and Patrick Letellier

And yet, both men have their own reasons for giving to Puente – reasons both deeply personal and political, which connect them to the wider community. They give as a couple, making regular monthly donations and chipping in extra when Puente has a unique need, such as blankets for farm workers or back-to-school supplies for local children.

Letellier, a writer, grew up in Connecticut with a single mom and four other siblings. Money was often tight, so the family used donations from the local food bank to get by, and sometimes the local church. That formative experience prompted him to volunteer to distribute food through the St. Vincent de Paul Society in Pescadero. It also compelled him to start giving to Puente. But it wasn’t until Puente founded its Pescadero Grown! Farmers’ Market and launched its Tokens program, which boosts the spending power of low-income shoppers, that Letellier felt compelled to make a monthly commitment to Puente.

“That Puente was not only running a farmers’ market but that they were going to help people to buy more – that just really moved me,” says Letellier.

For his part, Collyer not only speaks Spanish, he’s from Chile. Spanish is his first language. He has a middle-class background, far different from local immigrants who started here with nothing. Yet “I’ve felt some simpatico with them,” Collyer says. “Having grown up in Latin America, I have a lot of respect and admiration for the undocumented workers who support the economy.”

Collyer, a psychiatrist, also knows Puente well, after seeing participants in Puente’s behavioral health programs. He also spoke at Puente’s annual Career Night, a forum for local students to hear from professionals who were the first in their families to go to college.

So their reasons for giving to Puente are personal, but also political. “We eat tons of vegetables that are grown by people locally – the people who are reviled in the media,” says Letellier, referring to pervasive anti-immigrant rhetoric. “I feel like in a really small way we’re part of the other side, which is to support and provide services to people who are helping drive the economy.”

Puente itself takes no political stance on national issues. But by giving children and adults the ability to obtain legal status, education, counseling, vocational training, and healthy food, Puente makes a statement on behalf of every person’s right to improve the conditions of one’s life, regardless of their income or legal status.

“Puente provides those vital resources for people to progress, particularly children,” says Collyer. “By being donors, we’re the lucky ones – we get to help. That’s an incredibly fortunate position to be in. Puente provides us the vehicle for us to be able to help.”

To donate to Puente, please visit https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/puente.

Sunshine, goats, ocean air, handmade gourmet food, and big smiles all around – by that measure alone, Puente’s first-ever Fall Harvest Fundraiser was a consummate success. It also achieved its primary objective, raising $32,000 for Puente’s youth programming.

The fundraiser, held September 14, brought more than 100 Puente supporters to the sunlit pastures of Harley Farms, Pescadero’s acclaimed goat dairy. Unlike most visitors, these special donors had the run of the farm – and a great deal of happy chatter and goat petting ensued.

“Everybody was just so happy to meet everybody else,” recalls Kerry Lobel, Executive Director of Puente.

Supporters also enjoyed a mouth-watering menu of finger foods, prepared in-house by Harley Farms chef Joe Harrington. Dishes included artichoke frittata, stuffed jalapeno peppers, pulled pork from Markegard Family Grass-Fed, lemon cucumbers with Harley Farms tomatoes and thyme, and duck crostini with melted onions and Farmstead quince.

“We had a fabulous afternoon with wonderful people supporting Puente and their involvement in our community. It was a pleasure to host the event and to be a part of our diverse and happy village! I hope we will have the opportunity to do it again,” says Dee Harley, founder of Harley Farms.

Lobel made some remarks inside the farm’s beautiful big barn, along with Program Director Rita Mancera and board members Laura Franco and Mary McMillan. The women updated guests on important goings-on at Puente, including progress on the mobile medical clinic bound for the South Coast in 2015 and Puente’s emerging early literacy programs.

About half the money raised came from foundations and sponsoring corporate partners, and half from individuals. All new and increased donor gifts, and gifts from donors who had not given to Puente in the previous 12 months, will be matched by the Sobrato Family Foundation.

All the money raised at the Harley Farms event will underwrite the costs of Puente’s transformational youth summer program as well as its children’s programming. It’s an essential source of support, says Lobel.

“These unrestricted gifts allow us to be the most flexible and do things other organizations would wait for money to do, like create a youth program. It helps us respond quickly to community needs.”

Click here to view event photos taken by Lars Howlett.

To donate to Puente, please visit https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/puente.