Patient First in the Community

On Saturday, March 8th, Patient First returned to the Baltimore Convention Center to participate for our third year at the B'More Healthy Expo! This annual event showcases a wide variety of medical services from the area, in all fields of medicine. For many of the city's underserved citizens, this can be their only interaction with a medical provider, a dentist, or a clinic for the entire year.

As it has been for the past two years, this event draws massive crowds. This year the attendance was well over 25,000 and a large majority of them paid a visit to our table. Our promotional items were a huge hit, and everyone who stopped by had glowing things to say about all of our centers-- from Bayview, Glen Burnie, Bel Air, Pasadena, Catonsville, Perry Hall, and many others!

Fox45 anchor Kai Jackson, one of the emcees at the Expo's main stage stopped by our table to thank our staff for participating in the event. Maryland Congressman Kweisi Mfume also paid us a visit to thank everyone at Patient First for the good work we do day in, and day out. 

Once again, this event was a big hit for us, and launches us headlong into the 2025 event season! We look forward to coming back next year!

On Saturday, February 22nd, Patient First returned to the STAR Centre in Harford County for the Havre De Grace Ice Festival. This family-friendly event spreads itself across the whole town, with live ice carving demonstrations, an animal show under a heated tent, a live "Frozen" themed performance in their concert hall, an ice wall into which people could carve their names, and a vendor fair inside the two gymnasiums of this multi-purpose facility.

Our table was positioned right at the entrance of the second of two gyms where the more family-centric vendors were housed, which included a face painting station (which had a constant line that ran right up to our table and beyond), and a station full of puppies and kittens from a local animal rescue. That resulted in scores of visitors stopping by our table to pay us a visit, and help themselves to our giveaway items. The bulk of those visitors had been patients from either our Aberdeen or Bel Air centers, but a few came from points as far south as Glen Burnie. All of them had wonderful things to say about the friendliness of our staff, the cleanliness of our centers, and the professionalism and depth of compassion from our providers. We were even paid a visit by Ravens mascot Poe, and R2-D2!

Now in our second year of participation with this event, it has become a great way to warm up our event season! We look forward to year three! 

On Wednesday, February 19th, Perry Hall Elementary, one of our partner schools, held its annual Kindness Night event. 

Created as an opportunity to gather at the school and take part in activities which promote kind and positive behavior, this year's event served a dual and poignant purpose. In addition to creating crafts that showcased cooperation, generosity, and selflessness, students also created heartfelt tributes to one of their beloved teachers, who passed away to cancer earlier in the year.

For a small, two hour school event, the evening was a huge hit! Over 150 people attended, sharing pizza, creating kindness cards, meeting Ravens mascot Poe, and generally having fun with one another. Patient First was the only community partner invited to attend the evening, and received a nice shoutout from the principal during her opening announcements. Everyone we spoke with had brought their families to our Perry Hall center, which is just over a mile down the road from the school, and all had wonderful things to say about the level of care they'd received. The PTA was very grateful for our annual donation, which helped fund events like this one, and future ones for the remainder of the year.

The Towson Chamber of Commerce rang in the holiday season on Friday, December 6th with their annual Towson Tree Lighting celebration. Several hundred people braved the cold and wind to sing carols, patronize local chamber partners who lined the streets with their tables along Washington Avenue, and witness the lighting of the massive tree at the center of Towson's downtown circle. There were also appearances by holiday themed characters like the Grinch, Olaf, the Chick-fil-A cow (in Santa attire), and of course the jolly old elf himself, Saint Nicholas, who came in riding atop a fire truck.

Our Patient First table was one of the first to line the streets on the path to the tree. While the event only lasted 90 minutes we met with plenty of people, all of whom had been patients at our Towson center, which was less than a mile away from the festivities. Those we spoke with were an even mix of students from nearby Towson University, families, and retirees, and were all very complimentary about the care they received from our staff.

This was our first time participating in this event. Despite the chill in the air, the mood was festive and warm, and before we knew it, the celebration was over! The staff at our table had a wonderful time, and we look forward to being a part of it again next year!

The holiday season got off to a raucously festive start in Lancaster on Friday, November 30th, with the Mayor's Tree Lighting ceremony at Penn Square in the heart of downtown Lancaster.

For the first time in several years, Patient First returned as a sponsor for this event, and was afforded a table inside the warm and cozy confines of the city's Welcome Center, just feet away from the tree, where hundreds braved the frigid temperatures and wind, lining the streets shoulder-to-shoulder to witness this kickoff to the holiday season.

The event featured songs, poetry readings, and appearances from Cylo, the mascot of the Lancaster Stormers, and from Santa himself, who arrived atop a hook and ladder fire truck. After the mayor flipped the switch to illuminate the massive tree, the night concluded with a dance party in the square.

The city's tourism committee, who organized the event, made us feel very welcome, and encouraged people to come in, warm up, and visit our table. Everyone we spoke with had been patients at our centers in the past, whether it was Lancaster or points even farther out. The only family we spoke with that hadn't heard of Patient First had a good reason-- they were from the UK!

Despite the frosty weather, this was a very well attended event, and a very enjoyable one. We look forward to returning in 2025.

On Saturday, November 23rd, Patient First joined Johns Hopkins Medicine at their 30th annual symposium, A Woman's Journey. A series of lectures focusing on women's health issues, this year's conference drew in excess of 1,000 women in attendance.

Patient First was the only non-Hopkins affiliated organization in attendance, and we were made to feel very welcome. Speaking with attendees in between conference sessions, most had been patients from our Lutherville-Timonium center, and had nothing but glowing things to say about the care they received there. We also spoke with people from as far south as Waldorf, and Mechanicsburg, PA to the north. The event's chairperson, Kelly Ripken stopped by to thank us for being part of the day, and told us about her own visits to our Lutherville center, as well.  

As this was our first time hosting a table for this symposium in at least four years, we were made to feel very welcome and look forward to attending in 2025.

On Friday and Saturday, October 25th and 26th, Patient First returned to the campground at Codorus State Park in Hanover, PA to take part in the Codorus Trail of Treats. An event that has become legendary in the region, this two-night, sold-out event brings in families from all around the area, as well as campers who've set up amazing Halloween displays at their camp sites. Each night, 1,500 tickets are sold to families who travel through the campground and interact with the hundreds of camp sites.

This event has always been a particularly fun one for our staff, who can dress up in costume as they hand out our safety blinkers and hand sanitizer. We brought 3,000 blinkers to the event, and went through every single box in our inventory! What makes it even more incredible is that all that happened with the space of three hours each night!

The parents we spoke with came from all over the area-- from Hanover, from York, even from northern Baltimore County. So many people remembered us from our presence there over the past three years, and told us how much they loved the level of care they received from our centers.

This is always a very intense, but very fun pair of evenings that mark the last stretch of our event calendar. It's always a thrill to see the array of costumes and decorations by the thousands, and our staff (a few of them first-timers) say they look forward to being a part of it next year!

For a third year, Patient First returned to the Enchanted Fairy Festival in York, PA as a sponsor for this event celebrating people who look at the world in a slightly more magical view than most. As always, we were treated very well by the organizers, and given a great spot in the center of the topmost level of this three-tiered event at Springettsbury Park, less than two miles from our East York center.

Most of the people who stopped by our tent had been patients at the York center, while a few came from Harrisburg, and a surprising number from points farther out, like Towson, Glen Burnie, Lutherville, and even Wyomissing.

Our staff had a great time interacting with the patrons of this event, almost all of whom came in some form of fantasy costume. While only a few dozen people wanted to avail themselves of our free blood pressure check offer, our second table where we taught children how to make popsicle stick fairies saw over 100 takers. The parents were happy to see that we provided this free opportunity for their kids to be creative, while we talked with their parents about our services.

This was scheduled to be a two day event, however, a violent storm blew through overnight, carrying off nearly every single tent at the site, and destroying the inventory of dozens of artisans and craftspeople. Fortunately, no one was injured, and our hearts go out to those whose livelihoods were destroyed by this act of nature.

This has become one of the more entertaining events in our calendar in recent years, and we're hopeful that despite the toll that this storm has wrought, that the Fairy Festival will return in 2025.

The Piney Orchard Street Festival returned to Odenton for another fantastic end-of-season celebration of the community! The event, just three miles from our Odenton center always draws large crowds with its mix of vendors, local food trucks, live music, and rides for the kids!

Unlike last year, when a sudden downpour cut the festival short just past the halfway mark, this year's weather was ideal, with just enough cloud cover to keep the temperatures down to a cool, but comfortable level.

About 95% of the people we spoke with had been patients at our Odenton center, and had nothing but praises for the efficiency, cleanliness, and care that they received there. We spoke to several hundred people throughout the course of the day, and every one of them were so complimentary.

The most popular item on our table for the day was hands down, our magnetic clips. The hand sanitizers were also a popular grab. Our table was about 100 yards from the bandstand, but our staff was still about to manage to perform a few blood pressure checks.

This event is always one of the best represented events that we attend in the area. We always look forward to being a part of this sprawling community get-together.

As summer draws to a close, the tradition of the Maryland State Fair returned to the Timonium Fairgrounds, just a mile and a half from our Towson center. For the third year in a row, Patient First has been a proud sponsor of this end-of-summer event, with our table greeting fairgoers as soon as they passed through the gates! And talk about visibility-- on Saturday, attendance was over 70 thousand, while Sunday saw even more-- nearly 73 thousand people passing through the gates! Over the entire course of the fair, our name and branding was seen by a record breaking 589,380 people!

This year, in addition to our branding all over the fair banners, promotional materials, and hand washing stations, we were featured among the proud sponsors of the annual pig races! Our banner was hung Daytona-style along the side of the track, as four piglets sprinted the length of the oval four times a day for a crowd of about 150 people each day of the fair. The races are always a huge hit with families, and we were happy to be a part of it!

Another first in our history at the fair came in the form of our staff offering free blood pressure checks- a service that was quite popular until crowd and ride noise made it difficult to provide accurate readings. 

Among the most popular items at our table were the hand sanitizer (perfect for cleaning up after petting the horses and livestock) and band-aids (essential after the inevitable trip and fall of kids on the asphalt of the midway). While we spoke to people from as far away as Richmond and New Jersey, so many had been patients at Towson, Owings Mills, Bayview and Perry Hall centers. Nearly every center in the Maryland region was represented by folks who came by to thank our staff for the aid they provided in their time of need.

Whereas last year, our staff roasted as soon as we stepped out from under our tent, this year the weather could not have been better- mild temperatures that never exceeded 85 degrees, and absolutely no rain or humidity. 

This is always one of the highlights of the event season for this region, and this year did not disappoint! Everyone who came out to help staff this event had a great time, and we're all looking forward to more fun at the fair in 2025!