on Friday a coalition of health care and insurance companies joined together with two nonprofits to host a health fair for veterans the event was held at Branch Brook Park in Newark where more than a dozen different screenings were available ted Goldberg was there and spoke to some of those veterans who gave so much of themselves for us and now need that same support as they continue to live with the impacts their service is now having on their lives a lot of the veterans from Vietnam are passing away and I within the last two months I went to three of them already funerals angelo Rakinelli was one of about 200 veterans who got free health screenings at Branch Brook Park Friday this is just like how you're how you're doing how are you doing put it this way i'm waiting for the doctor to tell me the health fair hosted veterans and seniors with 14 different types of healthc care screenings how did it all come out everything was normal it's pretty good definitely glad it came sick very sick like like a lot of veterans here they're sick hard to walk the tests ran the gamut from checking for high blood pressure asthma screenings and scheduling tests for HIV we're trying to assess people's risk for uh chronic health conditions like stroke heart disease diabetes um all with the ultimate goal of of speaking to some of the root causes that drive these chronic conditions dr ernani Sadder says the physical screenings were just as important as the other resources open to vets like helping them navigate the VA bureaucracy and setting up services for mental health i had a gentleman who was in his 70s that you know told me that now he's finally ready to talk about his war experiences and so you know such a huge need for mental health services among our veterans we have 300,000 veterans in the state of New Jersey and roughly 30% are seen by VA health facilities so there's that's still a huge number that's not seen we're trying to provide those gaps as well as access to great quality healthcare the event included free lunch for everyone who stopped by it's my passion to feed people i've been feeding people for 20 years now but this is where I get the most gratitude right here the folks who organized this which include RWJ Barnabas an underwriter for NJ Spotlight News said it was important to pay back those who served our country veterans have given so much to us so for us to give back just a little something for them is so important as a society we pay a lot of lip service uh when it comes to our veterans and and today's resource fair is a real opportunity for us to connect our veterans to various services plenty of leaders spoke at the event stressing the need for them and their national counterparts to do more to help veterans i really care about our veterans and some of the things that they're going through and I'm trying to make sure that we give everything that we can here in the state of New Jersey and I'm about passing laws that will help our veterans we have to do better in this state and in this country to remind everyone that the American flag was not built for one person or one community it was a collective of tears and hard work there is no reason a veteran should go to sleep without a roof over his or her head vincent Solomino is the state's deputy commissioner of veterans affairs he reminded everyone about the existence of Vetto to Vet a state hotline designed to connect homeless veterans with case managers and housing and my expectation is that in hours not days we are getting that veteran off the street and into rapid housing the Veterans Health Fair was also hosted by Feeding Our Heroes and the Veterans Foundation of America and they expect to host more of these between now and Veterans Day in mid- November in Newark i'm Ted Goldberg NJ Spotlight News support for the Medical Report is provided by Horizon Bluec Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey an independent lency of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association