The District is hosting its first Wellness Weekend, which promotes physical and mental wellness through the options available at businesses downtown.
In the past, there have been numerous events held downtown that focused on bars and restaurants, but Wellness Weekend will place extra emphasis on self-care businesses.
“This is a wonderful opportunity to include some of our service industries like massage therapists, salons, yoga studios, all of that kind of stuff,” said Christina Kelley, the president and retail manager of Makes Scents. The custom fragrance shop will be one of the participants in Wellness Weekend, which starts Saturday morning and ends Sunday evening.
The event will encourage participants to visit multiple local shops and businesses, such as alleyCat Yoga, Makes Scents and Orr Street Farmers & Artisans Market.
Participants will meet at 9 am Saturday at Flat Branch Park. Events include energy medicine yoga techniques with alleyCat Yoga from 10 am to noon and tai chi and qigong sessions from 2 pm to 4 pm Attendees are free to visit any business downtown and check out its health and relaxation options outside of the schedule.
The Orr Street Farmers & Artisans Market will be held as usual Sunday from 9 am to 1 pm at Wabash Bus Station. Behind Wabash, during those same hours, a “brown bag review” will allow people to bring forgotten medications and let pharmacists determine what they were prescribed for and whether they are expired. Liberty Family Medical, a local direct primary care clinic, will be at the event and will also provide blood pressure checks.
“This is just an opportunity to make it easy for many services to be offered in one area downtown, promoting your wellness,” said Heather Hargrove, business development manager at Liberty Family Medicine. “And we’ll be a small part of that.”
Other than the few scheduled activities, most participating businesses will be doing their own special Wellness Weekend events. The list of businesses participating will be posted on The District’s website.
Wellness bingo cards will be handed out at coffee shops and other businesses downtown. The cards will encourage people to try different mental and physical health-related activities, like having lunch with a friend, journaling, eating a salad or taking a yoga class. A randomly drawn winner will take home $100 worth of gift cards for businesses in the District.
There will also be a “District step challenge,” where participants count the number of steps between different downtown landmarks, and the top five most accurate numbers will win Shop Local CoMo merchandise. All bingo cards and step counts must be turned in by Sept. 27.
Nickie Davis, executive director of The District, hopes that Wellness Weekend will blossom into an annual event.
“This will just be another great one to add to our other events that we throw every year,” Davis said. “Just kind of a fun event to bring those businesses to light and to help the community be more mentally and physically well.”