A Natural Health Fair will be held at the Amboy Grange on Feb. 5, which showcases local businesses that promote natural approaches to health, fitness and beauty.
Helena Green, an organizer of the event and a certified holistic coach at Triumph Over Gray, is excited to bring alternative medicine to the area for all to see.
“We want to show them education and self-development,” said Green. “People have interest in healthy and natural approaches, so (we want to) broaden their horizons and help them learn more.”
Many services and products will be provided at the event, which include non-toxic personal and household products, chair massages, native plants and essential oils. The first portion of the event, which runs from 9 a.m. to noon, will feature lectures covering natural and holistic subjects like healing trauma, changing one’s mindset and expunging toxins. From 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., there will be a free fair which will have vendor tables, mini-classes and coaches people can talk with.
Alternative medicine and natural healing have become more popular in recent years, according to Green.
“If you look back 10 years ago, people used to think of essential oils as a fad or gimmick, same with gluten-free food,” Green said. “But if you look right now, there’s a rising interest in those things. People are asking, ‘what can we do differently that we haven’t tried yet?’ Let’s see if we want to get results, maybe we shouldn’t be trying the same thing, but maybe we should try something different and see if we get different outcomes.”
She added that she thinks weight loss used to be considered a simple system of “eat less, exercise more,” but nowadays people are looking at alternative weight-loss solutions, like metabolic approaches and fine-tuning a person’s metabolism.
“I guess to define the interest in natural therapies is that people are starting to realize legacies of natural approaches such as Chinese or Indian medicine,” Green said. “They may have value, and it’s not just what we discovered in the west over the past 100 years, but there are a lot bigger and broader options out there, and people want to know about it.”
Green describes the offering as a community event. She said the vendors and speakers have helped organize it collectively.
“People who live here got together and said, ‘hey, let’s help people out,’” she said. “I think it’s more of a co-op, mutual effort rather than sponsor-driven.”
From noon to 2 p.m., there will be an organic homemade lunch, which Green compares to a school bake sale. Multiple vendors will contribute offerings and attendees can then take the recipes home to make themselves, she said.
“The purpose is to help people be successful in life and live their life the best way they can using natural approaches,” Green said.
On behalf of Triumph Over Gray, she said the business is guided by a philosophy meant to help others.
“The underlying philosophy is that you don’t just take a pill or do a surgery to fix one thing and you’re done,” said Green. “It’s all connected and if you put your body in its right balance, then a lot of problems get taken care of. Part of the philosophy is that you discover how things work and you listen to your body, and you put your body in tune with nature and how it was intended to be, then all things come together and start improving.”
The Natural Health Fair will be held at 40107 NE 221st Ave., Amboy. Tickets for the lectures and lunch, as well as further information about the event, can be found online at triumphovergray.com/pages/feb5.
