It should have been quiet on Saturday morning at the Parker-Bennett-Curry Elementary School last month.

It was the weekend and a wave of storms had just swept through the region the night before, painting a pale gray sky that loomed overhead for much of the morning.

Many people stayed home, weary of another round of chilly wet weather.

But some families forfeited a lazy day at home for a busy afternoon learning how to better take care of themselves.

A health fair that included screenings, information tables and referral services was set up inside the elementary school and drew about 50 people.

The event was sponsored and organized by the Alliance Project, a partnership with El Centro la Esperanza, a Hispanic community center in Bowling Green and South Central Area Health Education Center.

The event’s goal was to promote preventative health care and healthy lifestyles for the Hispanic community.

But the Alliance Project could meet a formidable future.

The grant that funds the Alliance Project expires on July 31, leaving the people involved reevaluating the services they can offer the Bowling Green Hispanic community and searching for more money to keep the project afloat.

“I do hope we’re able to organize and stay open,” said Celia Lopez, director of El Centro. “There’s with no doubt need in our community.”

The Alliance Project began in August 2004 with direct congressional funding from U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell.

The project originally received $688,911 to help establish the office of El Centro la Esperanza, or “Center of Hope,” in downtown Bowling Green.

The money also went toward training people to be medical interpreters, hiring employees at the center and sponsoring events such as the health fair.

The project and the center began efforts to meet the needs of the Hispanic community in Bowling Green by providing direct services and assistance to Hispanic, Lopez said.

The morning began slowly as a few families trickled into the Parker-Bennett-Curry cafeteria.

Bowling Green freshman Natalia Barahona greeted everyone who came into the large room. Speaking in Spanish, Barahona instructed families to fill out basic medical information on one of the clipboards lined up in the center of the table.

Mothers carried babies in car seats and herded small children bundled in colorful coats into the area.

“If one person has to come, everyone has to come,” Barahona said of the number of families at the event.

People did not have to struggle with intimidating language barriers, and undocumented residents didn’t fear legal repercussions.

Anyone who attended the fair was treated.

Families would then saunter through the cafeteria, stopping on their path to a healthful life at colorful display boards with statistics printed in Spanish about nutrition assistance.

Western students from the College of Health and Human Services dispensed information at the small, gray cafeteria tables with the help of interpreters.

The Alliance Project’s goals include providing education to prevent illness and disease and making referrals to health services.

Some people in the Hispanic community don’t know where to go or are scared to find help, said Lucy Juett, South Central AHEC project director. AHEC is an organization that promotes healthy communities through innovative partnerships.

“It doesn’t matter who you are or where you are, everyone needs health care,” Juett said. “Our main focus is prevention, and the Hispanic community needs that as much as anybody.”

But promoting good health at fairs like the one at Parker-Bennett-Curry may not be possible without federal money.

As July looms, Lopez and others involved in El Centro are weighing the available options to keep providing services without federal aid.

The original congressional funding helped establish El Centro’s plan to help the Hispanic community.

The Alliance Project received a one-year, no-cost extension for the grant, which was originally supposed to last one year, Juett said.

The project didn’t receive any earmarks for federal money this past year, so it will be at least a year before the project gets any more money, she explained.

And the South Central AHEC won’t be able to help El Centro because of the loss of funding, Juett said.

Yet participants and volunteers at the health fair didn’t express any concern over the unknown future of the project and El Centro.

Instead, they took advantage of every opportunity available during the day.

Children and their parents milled into a quiet room down the hall from the cafeteria after receiving their materials.

Juan, 8, hopped onto a chair.

Alexandria Ellis, a Greenville graduate student, gently placed a set of red and blue headphones on Juan’s ears. She explained to him in Spanish that she was giving him a hearing test to raise his hand when he heard a sound in the headphones.

Hearing screenings were just one of the services offered on Saturday.

Nelson Atehortua, the coordinator Hispanic Health Fair, walked into the room as Juan jumped down from the chair.

“Your son can hear,” Ellis said jokingly to Atehortua.

Atehortua had been walking in and out of the school, monitoring everyone’s progress during the health screenings. He was stationed for most of the day in the Mobile Health Unit, a mini-clinic on wheels that is part of the Institute of Rural health Development and Research in the College of Health and Human Services.

Atehortua ushered in his patrons of the day, who in turn held out a finger for him to prick.

As the sun began coming out in the afternoon, Atehortua’s blue glove-clad hands held a young man’s finger. Atehortua rubbed his finger with a small cotton square before pricking it with a needle, squeezing blood into a vial.

Someone came in to ask Atehortua if he wanted to take a lunch break.

“They’re first, my stomach comes second,” he said.

Atehortua was checking patients’ blood glucose and cholesterol levels and to make referrals to health care facilities if a problem showed up.

He said Alliance Project events like the health fair help provide health care to Hispanics who may be intimidated by lack of insurance, language barriers, immigration ears or potential racism.

“Some of them need a friendly face, someone who will speaks their language that will help,” he said.

None of the services the Alliance project provides were offered two years ago, and the community could return to that state if there is no more funding, Atehortua said.

But there is hope for El Centro and the Alliance Project.

Lopez is working the National Council la Raza, a Hispanic organization that is helping the non-profit find funding.

Everyone involved in El Centro is deciding in the next few weeks what services could offered with a non-existent budget.

“Basically, we’re moving from straight service providers to more community organizing,” Lopez said.

She is still anticipating that the cloud will lift over El Centro and the project’s destiny.

“I’m doing some heavy prayer,” she said. “This is my life.”