What makes someone drive 19 hours to attend a wellness event in Broken Arrow?

Brandon Andres Green, host of Good Neighbor Podcast Tulsa, sits down with Andrea Reed, creator of the Holistic Wellness Event and founder and president of Oklahoma Center for Wellness, to talk about why the event has grown from a small gathering into a two-day experience drawing practitioners, speakers, vendors, and attendees from across Oklahoma and beyond.

Andrea says the idea started with her own search for answers.

After becoming a mother, she went through a difficult personal health journey and realized how scattered the natural and holistic wellness community felt. People kept asking her where to find massage therapy, bodywork, acupuncture, chiropractic care, and other practitioners.

So she asked a simple question:

What if we brought everyone together under one roof?

The first event was focused on birth and baby wellness. People responded well enough that they immediately started asking when the next one would be.

From there, the idea kept expanding.

Andrea says attendance has roughly doubled year after year, and the vendor community has grown to around 100 vendors in recent years.

This year, the Holistic Wellness Event is expanding into a two-day event on October 3 and 4 in Broken Arrow.

And it’s designed for more than people who already know the wellness world.

Andrea says one of her priorities is making the event feel approachable for someone who has never tried acupuncture, chiropractic care, red light therapy, biofeedback, bodywork, or other wellness services and simply wants to ask questions without feeling pressured.

Attendees can meet practitioners, attend workshops, hear speakers, explore local products, and try some wellness experiences firsthand.

But Andrea says the biggest thing she wants people to leave with is simpler than that:

Hope.

She regularly meets people who feel like they’ve tried everything and still don’t have the answers they’re looking for.

Andrea shares one story from last year about an attendee who drove 19 hours looking for help with two very specific concerns. After talking with her, Andrea says she knew exactly which people at the event to connect her with.

That kind of connection is the real goal.

The event also creates opportunities for practitioners, students, local producers, and small businesses. Andrea says people have found jobs, launched businesses, introduced new products, found mentors, and built professional relationships through the community surrounding the event.

And her long-term vision goes much further than one weekend.

Oklahoma Center for Wellness is building toward more online community, practitioner meetups, recurring programming, and eventually a larger wellness campus in northeastern Oklahoma.

The philosophy behind that vision is:

Learn. Teach. Heal. Thrive.

Andrea says the “thrive” part matters because people can become so focused on fixing what is wrong that they stop imagining what life could look like beyond the problem.

For her, healing shouldn’t be the finish line.

It should create room for something better on the other side.

Learn more about Andrea Reed and the Holistic Wellness Event:
https://holisticoklahoma.com/