Last month, 15 Ashland University nursing students and staff volunteered at the annual Amish Health and Safety Day that was held in Ashland County.

More than 300 Amish were in attendance to learn about topics such as fire safety, buggy safety, and lifestyle and eating habits.

Marje Silcox, a nursing professor, gathered the group of AU students to help at the event.

“What we did was take blood pressure and blood sugars as kind of a screening to let people know,” she said. “And then we wrote the information on a little card to help the Ashland Health Department with community outreach. If people had high blood pressure the students got to educate them on things they could cut out in their diet, or if they should see their doctor.”

The event also featured a schoolhouse that would catch fire to teach the children what to do if such an event happened, drunk goggles the Amish could try on, gun and hunting safety, and horse and buggy safety.

There were also booths set up by free health organizations such as one that gives out free mammograms.

The event helped the Ashland community reach out to the Amish while also teaching the volunteers new career and life lessons.

Senior Adam Heydinger was among the AU students who volunteered at the event.

“I learned that nurses are required to care for and provide education to all people in the community, and that diversity in nursing includes local aspects as well as global,” he said. “It is important to know the local culture of the area you plan to practice in as well, but also to be prepared to care for a wide variety of patients that are ultimately different than yourself.”

It is not uncommon to see AU nursing students out in the community volunteering.

“I really like taking the students to do things,” Silcox said. “We do sports physicals at the city schools every year. I try to make myself available so people can call so I can get some students there to help.”

AU nursing students will also be volunteering at the Medcentral Health System Diabetes Health fair in November.

“I enjoy working with people and nursing as a field really interests me because it so uniquely blends an art with a science major,” Heydinger said. “Nursing as a profession would fail if it didn’t include both the art of nursing as well as the scientific, evidence based foundation.