Pampering Is an Education

Help - in a wide range of important areas - is available for pregnant women and their children in Gulf County.

About two dozen young women learned that fact last Wednesday as they were pampered and fed at Gulf County's first Healthy Start's Pampered Pregnant Women's Spa Day.

Hosted by the Bay, Franklin, Gulf Healthy Start Coalition, Inc., and the Gulf County Health Department, Wednesday's event at the Centennial Building in Port St. Joe came on the heels of similar events in Bay and Franklin Counties.

"This is about community outreach and education," Sharon Owens, director of Healthy Start, explained. "We want these young expectant mothers to feel good about themselves while learning things they need to know."

All the participants were eager to learn.

After viewing several exhibits and talking to numerous experts on everything from child care, parent and educational support to home visit programs and smoking cessation, the mothers-to-be registered for door prizes and began lining up for spa treatments.

They laughed and talked with each other and volunteers who donated time and supplies for manicures, makeup lessons and hair cuts.

Then, with very little break in talking and discussions with service providers, everyone ate the lunch generously provided by local businesses. Door prizes were distributed throughout the three-hour program, and most everyone took home something useful for caring for a new arrival.

Connie Huddleston, of North Florida Child Development and head of the planning committee for the event, said the goal was to educate the young women "in everything from nutrition to smoking cessation to issues on domestic violence.

"There's lots of help out here for these young women, but lots of them don't know about it," Huddleston explained.

She said during the event she had already gotten some of the participants enrolled in stop-smoking programs and was talking to others about getting their children - even before birth - enrolled in the North Florida Child Development programs.

The approach worked, too, according to Candice Hall, one of the participants who was eager to praise Healthy Start's efforts. Hall is expecting her first child in January.

"This is a day for me to take time off from all the men around me and have fun," Hall laughed. But she was serious when she described how "the Gulf County Health Department really stepped up and got me into everything before I even knew it."

The Wewahitchka resident said that through the Health Department and Healthy Start's efforts, she was already down from a pack of cigarettes per day to just three.

Sara Farmer, a Port St. Joe resident expecting her baby in October, said she had already signed up for a number of classes because of the event. "This is wonderful, it's been really fun," she said.

The planning committee for Spa Day was led by Huddleston and the Wewahitchka Women's Club.

Besides Healthy Start and the Gulf County Health Department, participating agencies and organizations included North Florida Child Development, W.I.C., Gulf County Health Department Tobacco Prevention, Florida Department of Child and Families, and Gulf Coast Community College Workforce Center.

Petals N Things (Wewahitchka) and The Bagel Maker (Panama City) donated all the food. Deanna Daniels, with Bellissimo Salon (Panama City) and Miss Irene, of Cooper's Cut N Style in Port St. Joe, styled hair, while Elka VanDiver, owner of Condo Genie Rentals in Panama City and a trained manicurist, painted participants' nails.

Karla Wiley, from Ailene's Beauty Salon in Port St. Joe, demonstrated Merle Norman cosmetics through makeovers, as did independent Mary Kay consultant Betty Jean Godwin, also from Port St. Joe. Carol Dixon, another Port St. Joe independent Mary Kay consultant, donated several door prizes and numerous cosmetic samples.

Wild Bill's Bingo (Panama City) donated additional door prizes.

The city of Port St. Joe assisted by waiving the usual rental fee for the Centennial Building.