By John Sawyer

Regular readers of Health Centers on the Hill may have noticed we’ve been a bit quiet the last week or so – there are a couple of reasons for that:  first, of course, Congress has headed back home for the month of August, and second, because we’ve been preparing our own travel plans, joining advocates in the field for National Health Center Week celebrations nationwide.  So where is the NACHC federal/advocacy staff headed, you ask?

• I joined all of the health centers in New Jersey on Monday for a fantastic, albeit sweaty, NHCW kick-off picnic outside of Trenton, organized by the NJPCA and joined by Health Center Champion Sen. Robert Menendez, as well as New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine.

• Kaitlin McColgan flew straight from vacation to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where she joined health center advocates from around the state and Sen. Tom Harkin at an event celebrating the re-opening of Linn Community Care, which was badly damaged in last year’s floods.

• Craig Kennedy visited Lansing, Michigan (one of the five states he’s never been to – only four left!) and joined (former Ingham County Commissioner) Sen. Debbie Stabenow for an event in her old stomping grounds at the Ingham County Health Department.

• Lupita Salazar-Letscher will make two stops in a swing through her native Texas later in the week, first with Congressman Henry Cuellar at Gateway Community Health Center in Laredo, and then with Congressman Ciro Rodriguez at Community Health Development, Inc, in Uvalde.

• Alexandra Clift made it down to North Carolina on Monday for an event at Wake Health Services in Raleigh with a trifecta of Congressmen: Reps. David Price, Brad Miller, and Bob Etheridge.  Today she heads up to New Jersey for an event with House Health Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Frank Pallone at Monmouth Family Health Center in Long Branch.

• Dan Hawkins heads to the Great Plains tomorrow for an event with Senator Kent Conrad (a key member of the all-important Senate Finance Committee) at Northland Community Health Center in McClusky, North Dakota.

• Amanda Pears joined Bi-State Primary Care Association CEO Tess Kuenning and 1,800 others for President Obama’s town-hall meeting on health care in Portsmouth, New Hampshire on Monday.  She is in Rhode Island today, with Senator Jack Reed and Congressman Jim Langevin at Northwest Health Center in Foster, and may try and get down to Connecticut later in the week.

• Marc Wetherhorn is making a west coast swing – on Tuesday, he attended an event with the Community Clinic Consortium of Contra Costa and Solano Counties with House Education and Labor Committee Chairman Congressman George Miller, today he’ll head to Golden Valley Health Center in Turlock, CA with Congressman Dennis Cardoza, and tomorrow he’ll join folks from the Alameda Health Consortium as the honor House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee Chairman Congressman Pete Stark.

Keep coming back to the Health Center News and Happenings blog for in-depth coverage (and guest-blogging) of each of these events, and so many more!