National First Responders Day

EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) - President Joe Biden declared Oct. 28 as National First Responders Day. A day to both recognize and celebrate the men and women who risk their lives to keep their communities safe.

"First responders a lot of times, we forget to take care of ourselves we are so focused on needing to take care of our community, trying to take care of one another," said Tavo Vidal, Program Manager for CBP Workforce Wellness Program in El Paso at Endeavors.

Vidal is a second generation fire fighter who served with the El Paso Fire Department for a decade, following in his father's footsteps who served 26 before retiring.

Vidal know the importance of taking care of one's own wellness especially when tasked with responding to emergencies and challenging times the community experiences during emergencies.

"We have a wellness program that we have collaborated with the CBP in which we provide wellness services that include mental health but also alternative holistic services, such as meditation, Reiki, fitness, nutrition, those types of other services that are primarily for our first responders are customs and border protection and also we help with our El Paso Sheriff's Department as well with Sheriff's officers," said Vidal about Endeavors Wellness Center.     

Frist responders are considered everyday heroes by the community because they provide help during a crisis, but they also have to be reminded that they need to take care of their own wellness.

"If we are not well ourselves, then it is hard for us to be able to go out and serve our community but also within our families," added Vidal.

"Wellness is not just about mental health, we are looking at the entire part of it, from our spirituality to our physical to our emotional health, and we utilize different types of services such as exercise, we do provide stretch and mobility, a lot of injury prevention because our first responders are very active."

The wellness program provides alternatives such as yoga, learning how to breath, meditation, a lot of those other types of mindfulness types of services that can assist with mental health, emotional health and spiritual health and includes first responders' entire family.