A woman checks out the healthy snack table at the North Side Christian Health Center’s Family Day Aug. 14. (Photo courtesy Floyd Cephas)

The North Side Christian Health Center celebrated health and wellness Saturday with its first-ever Family Day.

The event, in honor of National Health Center Week, featured free health screenings, healthy refreshments and prize drawings for two free physical exams and three Giant Eagle gift cards.

Katie Andary, the health center’s development associate, said they decided to host the event in order to celebrate the health-centered week with their patients.

National Health Center Week is hosted by the National Association of Community Health Centers to raise awareness of the communities that health centers serve, Andary said.

This year’s theme on turning vision into reality dealt in part with health care reform and preparing for an influx of patients as more people gain access to health care.

Six partner organizations set up tables at Family Day to hand out information about the health services they can offer the Christian Health Center’s patients, and medical assistant Shalena Lewis offered face painting for the kids.

This fall, the health center’s third floor will become a clinic for the Pennsylvania Women, Infants and Children Program. WIC provides healthy food, nutrition information and health care referrals to eligible women with infants and young children.

The Pennsylvania Department of Health will administer and operate the clinic.

For more information about the North Side Christian Health Center, please visit its website, www.nschc.org. For more information about National Health Center Week, visit www.healthcenterweek.org.