PAYS PLAT — The small community of Pawgwasheeng, also known as Pays Plat First Nation, played host to many visitors on Thursday as it held its first health fair since before the pandemic.
The health fair is part of the community’s Culture Week which is the week before the annual powwow where the community holds a variety of events to promote culture and the community.
Debbie Bouchard, the community health representative, played a major role in planning the event and said it’s great to have everybody back once again socializing and getting good resources for their heath and welfare.
“After COVID, I am very pleased that we got a good turnout,” she said. “I was thinking there would be a lot less, but yeah, we got a great turnout.”
There were 15 booths in total at the health fair made up of various organizations from as far away as Thunder Bay, like AETS, which was represented at the event by project coordinator Stacey Morrisseau.
“We travel to all of our nine communities that we service, and we got invited by Debbie Bouchard to come set up a booth so that we can talk about any upcoming training opportunities and get any surveys submitted by the community members that are eligible to do surveys,” she said.
“Our surveys collect information in regard to education and work history so that we can use those stats for future funding projects.”
With such a great turnout at the health, the community is hopeful for another great turnout at the powwow according to Claire Auger, powwow committee organizer.
“Especially without having a powwow for two to three years, it’s very exciting to see what the turnout is going to be,” she said.
Pawgwasheeng’s culture week ends on Friday with the start of the annual powwow which will run until Sunday and the community encourages area residents to attend and experience the community’s culture.