By Tamas Mondovics
Armed with featuring dozens of departments, Hillsborough County hosted to in a massive free community event last month that combined fun and education to help Wimauma residents better understand how the County can help them.
Proving to be a success, hundreds showed up at Bethune Park, 5809 Edina St. in Wimauma to take advantage of the event that County officials appropriately called, The Heart of Hillsborough Community Fair, which affectively provided area residents information of fast-growing Wimauma about services such as health care, transportation, Head Start, child care, veterans services, public safety through the fire rescue and the Sheriff’s Office, just to name a few.
“The main thing we want people to take away is to know that Hillsborough County is here to help, and the County has services that many Wimauma residents can use,” said Assistant Hillsborough County Administrator, Dexter Barge. “Heart of Hillsborough is our way of making sure everyone knows what’s available.’’
Heart of Hillsborough is designed to be a fun event for the community coupled with music, games, bounce houses, including representatives from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Tampa Bay Lightning outreach teams, and numerous other nonprofit organizations.
Activities also included the Buccaneers Play 60 football activities, free vision screenings, a Zumba class, story time and puppet show, arts and crafts, and Bingo.
“Hillsborough County has many services available to Wimauma residents, but our research shows that many of those who live there aren’t aware of what Hillsborough County offers and how we can help them,” said Carl Harness, chief human services administrator. “That’s why we organized the Heart of Hillsborough event.’’
Commenting on the format of the Fair, senior special event coordinator with Parks & Recreation and one of the main organizers of the event Dana McDonald said, “We wanted to ensure our event guests have a great time with their family, so we added some fun elements like a Zumba class and partnered with popular organizations like the Buccaneers and the Lightning.”
For more information about Hillsborough County and upcoming events, visit www.hcflgov.net.
