This year's Harvest Festival held on Fleet Avenue in Slavic Village will feature free asthma screenings for children ages 8 to 13, in addition to the usual dose of pierogi and kielbasa. On Sunday, August 26th , the second day of the two day Harvest Festival, Southeast Kiwanis and the American Lung Association of Ohio will provide two-tiered free asthma screenings to children from 2 to 6 pm as part of an Asthma Screening Initiative Program started in the Slavic Village area in 2004.

          Asthma is often undiagnosed in children and they sometimes suffer unnecessarily from untreated symptoms.   The Asthma Screening Initiative Program focuses on increasing awareness, addressing issues related to asthma in schools and getting children properly diagnosed and referred for proper treatment.

          "The health of our children is a main priority for us all.   They are our future," said Councilman Brancatelli.  "I encourage parents to take advantage of this free screening opportunity."   Councilman Brancatelli has taken part in many of the fundraising activities sponsored by the Southeast Kiwanis for the benefit of asthma.

          The Asthma Initiative Program, funded by the Southeast Kwanis, in conjunction with the American Lung Association of Ohio, has offered free questionnaire and breathing test asthma screenings in six private schools in the Slavic Village area in the course of the last two years.  This testing costs approximately $30 to $50 dollars in an outpatient setting.  The same screening will be offered for free at the Harvest Festival to children accompanied by a parent and to adults for a donation to the Program. 

The development and implementation of the Program was made possible through the efforts of Tom Kallstrom, former Director of Respiratory Care at Fairview Hospital, currently with the American Association of Respiratory Care (AARC), and Tom McLeary, Fundraising Chairman of Southeast Kiwanis.  As the Program expanded assistance was also obtained from Dr. Robert Cohn, Director of Pediatrics at MetroHealth Medical Center, who took the role of Medical Director for the Program, and Mike Neuendorff, President of NeuMed Diagnostics, whose organization assisted with screenings.  

"Personally this has been one of the most rewarding volunteer efforts I've ever been involved in because of the cooperative effort and true caring of those involved," said McLeary.