Guests at the 51st Annual Maui County Senior Fair dance at the Maui Maui Village in Kahului on Nov. 2. The Maui News/Megan Moseley

Maui resident Aida Ventura had a handful of “goodies” she collected during the 51st Maui Senior Fair at the Maui Mall Village in Kahului on Saturday.

“I look forward to this every year,” she said of the lively event. “It’s nice because I can see my old coworkers, friends and relatives.”

Ventura was one of the many Maui County residents attending the annual gathering. This year’s theme was “The Power of Connection,” highlighting the impact that meaningful relationships and social interactions have on an individual’s and the community’s health and well-being.

Presented by the Maui County Office on Aging, in partnership with Maui Economic Opportunity Inc. and Maui Mall Village, the Senior Fair offered information on health care, home care, financial management, legal issues, advanced care planning, fraud prevention and more.

Rowena Dagdag-Andaya, Maui County executive of the Maui County Office on Aging, said the event is put on each year as part of a requirement from the Older Americans Act.

She said the fair helps promote the office’s goal in assisting the island’s kūpuna and caregivers to lead dignified and meaningful lives, as well as to help raise awareness about issues facing this generation.

She said one of the biggest challenges facing Maui’s aging community is workforce capacity and our ability to provide home and community-based services to them.

“There’s different kinds of services that kūpuna need, such as personal care or homemaker services, but there’s a shortage in workforce capacity,” she said.

She also sees housing as an area to improve.

“Since the Lahaina fires, we lost a number of senior housing facilities so filling that gap is going to be really tough in the years ahead,” she said.

She also hopes to see community and county-based resiliency planning included in development.

“As we rebuild in some of our areas, take into consideration the needs of our kūpuna and persons with disabilities, creating roads and sidewalks so that they’re more accessible, creating pathways so that there are optional or multiple ways to evacuate is going to be important and also creating community where services and shopping are easily accessible,” she said.

“If we can create communities like that where people are connected, that would help increase our ability to provide services and reach our immobile population,” she added.

More than 60 local businesses and organizations were present Saturday. The fair included live entertainment with performances by Nevah Too Late, Kaniala Masoe and Hālau Nā Lei ʻAʻala O Kuʻu Aloha, Keoni’s Hot Lava Fitness, Zumba with L10, Maui Taiko and exercise sessions with Paula Keele and the EnhanceFitness team.

Health-related services were also available and included vision screenings by Project Vision, reading glasses from the Lions Club and hearing screenings by Miracle Ear.

Venture Physical Therapy provided free blood pressure and pulse oximeter screenings and offered a robotic exoskeleton demonstration. Local pharmacies and organizations also provided health screenings and information on available vaccinations.

There was also a special presentation by Kupuna Alert Partners, a multi-agency collaboration including the state Department of the Attorney General, Department of Health, Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs and Department of Law Enforcement that covered topics such as Medicare fraud, prescription drug misuse, securities fraud and the top five scams in Hawai’i.

The Maui County Office on Aging is a program of the County of Maui Department of Human Concerns.