The Wright Center for Community Health is now administering the recently approved COVID-19 vaccine boosters that target the original strain of the coronavirus and the two omicron subvariants currently responsible for spreading the most illness.

Federal health officials last week authorized use of the new shots, called bivalent vaccines. They also are known simply as “updated boosters.”

These protectors – the first redesigned coronavirus vaccines to be released in America since the initial rollout in late 2020 – are intended to help contain a possible surge of new cases this fall and winter. Vaccines have proven to be the most powerful tool against the highly contagious virus, with demonstrated effectiveness during the pandemic in reducing severe illness, hospitalization and death.

The Wright Center for Community Health, headquartered in Scranton, is a Federally Qualified Health Center Look-Alike that currently operates eight primary care practices in Lackawanna, Luzerne and Wayne counties.

The Wright Center provides comprehensive primary and preventive health services – including medical, dental, behavioral health, addiction and recovery, and infectious disease services – that cover the lifespan from pediatrics to geriatrics. The Wright Center serves the community, with a special emphasis on medically underserved populations. No patient is turned away due to an inability to pay.

Learn more about The Wright Center’s mission and integrated health care services by calling 570-230-0019 or visiting TheWrightCenter.org.

Flu vaccines are now available to patients at The Wright Center for Community Health’s network of community health centers in Northeast Pennsylvania. Most individuals are encouraged to receive a flu shot before Halloween to help minimize the seasonal resurgence of the virus this fall and winter.

Vaccines developed for the 2022-23 flu season – including higher-dose vaccines recommended for older adults – are in stock at all of The Wright Center’s primary care practices in Lackawanna, Luzerne and Wayne counties. To schedule an office visit that includes the flu vaccination, call 570.230.0019 or go online to TheWrightCenter.org and use the express scheduling system.

It is recommended that everyone ages 6 months and older, with few exceptions, receive the flu vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Flu vaccines are approved by federal health officials and made widely available at health centers, doctors’ offices, pharmacies and certain other locations to encourage widespread participation by people who want to protect themselves and others in their community, including young children, senior citizens and other high-risk populations.

Individuals in a high-risk category who experience flu-like symptoms are urged to call a health care provider right away. Prompt treatment with a flu antiviral medication can often prevent serious complications.

All available flu vaccines in the U.S. for the 2022-23 season are the quadrivalent variety, meaning they are designed to protect against four different flu viruses. 

Talk with your primary care physician or another trusted health care provider if you have questions about the flu vaccine. The clinical team at The Wright Center is available to provide fact-based advice and proven strategies for coping with the seasonal respiratory virus and other issues that affect health and wellness.

Learn more about The Wright Center’s mission and integrated health care services by visiting TheWrightCenter.org.

The Wright Center for Community Health has named Danielle Sholcosky, MSW, LCSW, CPRP, of Dickson City as director of Behavioral Health Integration and Therapist Services. Sholcosky has worked as a licensed clinical social worker for The Wright Center for Community Health since 2021. 

Sholcosky received her Master of Social Work degree from Marywood University and a Bachelor of Arts in liberal studies with a minor in human development and family studies from Penn State University. She has also earned several continuing education certificates, including Eye Movement, Desensitization and Reprocessing Basic Training from The ClearPath Training Center; Mental Illness and Substance Abuse from Drexel University College of Medicine; and Certified Psychiatric Rehabilitation Practitioner from the Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association. 

The Wright Center for Community Health assists medically underserved rural and urban communities and vulnerable populations, including people who are underinsured and uninsured. With a sliding-fee discount available, The Wright Center reduces barriers to care by ensuring health care is affordable for everyone in need, regardless of their ability to pay. Overall, the Wright Center provides full-service, family-friendly community health practices that cover the lifespan, from pediatrics to geriatrics.

Its integrated services offer patients the convenience of going to a single location to access medical, dental, behavioral health, addiction and recovery services, and other supportive service lines.

The Wright Center’s network of clinics in Northeast Pennsylvania primarily serves patients from Lackawanna, Luzerne, Susquehanna, Wayne and Wyoming counties. Go to TheWrightCenter.org to use the express online scheduling system or call 570-230-0019 to make an appointment.

Artist Matt Willey of The Good of the Hive painted the mural, ‘The Bees’ Struggle to Survive,’ at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh, North Carolina. The Wright Center for Community Health is sponsoring one of his trademark murals in downtown Scranton.

The Wright Center for Patient & Community Engagement is bringing “The Good of the Hive,” a global mural project by artist Matt Willey that raises awareness about the importance of pollinators, to downtown Scranton as part of Scranton Tomorrow’s Mural Arts Program. The month-long project is scheduled to begin the week of Tuesday, Aug. 30.

The academic sponsor, Lackawanna College, will also host a lecture by the artist on Friday, Oct. 14 at 6 p.m. at the institution’s theater, 501 Vine St., Scranton. Seating for the free event is on a first-come, first-served basis.

The mural, on the side of the Civic Ballet Theater Building, 234 Mifflin Ave., will bring the artist closer to his personal commitment of hand-painting 50,000 honeybees — the number of bees in a healthy, thriving hive — in murals around the world. The completed mural will be unveiled on Friday, Nov. 4 at 5:30 p.m. during a special reception. Light fare will be served during the program.

Willey’s mission is to ignite curiosity and active engagement around planetary health issues through art, bees and storytelling. His vision is a world filled with people that see and experience the beauty and connectedness of all things. “The hive I’m creating is a metaphor for us all: No matter your color, nationality, religion, gender, age or economic status. This piece of art is an idealized picture of health to focus on as we work toward solutions,” he said. 

The worldwide mural project demonstrates perseverance in the face of adversity. Six years into an estimated 20-year project, Willey has created 35 murals and installations with more than 8,600 hand-painted bees. He has reached hundreds of thousands of people and created large-scale works at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo in Washington D.C., Dag Hammarskjold Plaza in New York City and Burt’s Bees Global Headquarters in Durham, North Carolina. 

The artist has collaborated with the World Council of Peoples for the United Nations (WCPUN) and New York City’s Art in the Parks Public Art Program. He has painted his murals at schools across the country and in the United Kingdom. In October of 2021, his art was displayed at the American Embassy in Beijing, China. 

The Wright Center for Patient & Community Engagement’s mission is to improve the health and welfare of the community through education, advocacy and patient-centered services and efforts directed toward the social and economic determinants of health. Its 18-member board, comprised of Wright Center for Community Health patients and area professionals, helps the region’s less fortunate, including those experiencing homelessness, poverty, food insecurity, social isolation and other hardships. 

For more information about The Wright Centers for Patient & Community Engagement, go to TheWrightCenter.org.

The Wright Center for Community Health will join with similar organizations and advocates across the United States next week in marking National Health Center Week, Aug. 7-13.

The observance provides an opportunity for the nation’s Community Health Centers to raise public awareness about the vital role they play in delivering affordable, nondiscriminatory health care to communities in need, including rural, high-poverty and other historically underserved areas.

Health centers provide comprehensive care to nearly 30 million patients at about 11,000 sites located across every U.S. state and territory. Collectively, these health centers save the nation’s taxpayers more than $24 billion each year through the prevention of emergency, hospital and specialty-care costs.

Other events to be held as part of The Wright Center’s observance of National Health Center Week:

• Driving Better Health appearance at the New Roots Heartwood Center, 100 S. Wyoming St., Hazleton, with COVID-19 vaccination and testing clinic from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Monday, Aug. 8. The Heartwood Center is a provider of homeless and recovery support services.
• Food bag distribution at The Wright Center for Community Health Kingston Practice, 2 Sharpe St., Kingston, from noon to 2 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 10, while supplies last. The limited number of free bags will be given on a first-come, first-served basis.
• Children’s Health Day activities to be held in conjunction with the weekly South Side Farmers Market, 526 Cedar Ave., Scranton, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 13. The Wright Center for Patient & Community Engagement will offer COVID-19 test kits, a limited number of free school backpacks and children’s art activities.
• COVID-19 vaccination and testing clinic with Driving Better Health vehicle at the newly opened Keystone Mission Transformation Center, 290 Parkview Circle, Wilkes-Barre, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Monday, Aug. 15. The clinic will be open to clients of the Keystone Mission program that serves homeless men as well as to the broader public, including residents of the neighborhood’s nearby public housing complexes.

For more information about The Wright Center’s National Health Center Week activities and other public events, visit its online calendar at TheWrightCenter.org/events.

The Wright Center for Patient & Community Engagement, in collaboration with Lackawanna College, is relocating the “Road to Recovery” Car Show on Saturday, Aug. 6 from Lackawanna College to Nay Aug Park, 500 Arthur Ave., Scranton, due to water damage on the college campus. 

Registration, which costs $10 per vehicle and $5 per motorcycle, begins at 8 a.m., with the show operating from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. The “Road to Recovery” Car Show will be located on the stage immediately past the pool area at the summer concert venue at Nay Aug Park. Participants are asked to enter at the Olive Street side of the park in front of the pool area. 

The family-friendly fundraiser also features prizes, music, raffles, food trucks, games and more. Proceeds from the program are used to offset transportation costs for patients of The Wright Center for Community Health’s Opioid Use Disorder Center of Excellence. For more information, contact Kara Seitzinger, director of public affairs/advisor liaison to the president and CEO at The Wright Center, at seitzingerk@thewrightcenter.org or 570.591.5170.

Pennsylvania designated The Wright Center for Community Health as an Opioid Use Disorder Center of Excellence in 2017 – one of 50 in the state. The program helps individuals in recovery reshape their lifestyles from the comfort of their own communities. Patients visit any of The Wright Center’s primary care practices in Lackawanna, Luzerne or Wayne counties to connect with supportive certified recovery specialists, case managers, social workers and medical providers who collectively help them break the cycle of addiction through outpatient care. More information about the center and its addiction and recovery services is available at thewrightcenter.org/coe.

The Wright Center for Community Health’s Healthy Maternal Opiate Medical Support program, known simply as Healthy MOMS, is also linked to the Opioid Use Disorder Center of Excellence. Established in 2018, the program was co-founded with multiple agencies to assist women who are pregnant and have a substance use disorder. Healthy MOMS provides prenatal, perinatal and postpartum care, including medication-assisted treatment, to women coping with a substance use disorder. It strives to break stigma while building the self-esteem of participating mothers during and after their pregnancies, ideally engaging them in recovery support services for about two years. More information about the program is available at healthymoms.org.