LA HABRA : School Asks Help on Health Program

A local elementary school is making an appeal to local groups, corporations and others to help maintain and augment its Healthy Start program, which provides medical, dental, counseling and other services to needy students and their families.

The school was recently turned down by the state for a $100,000 grant that would have improved the program, which provides these services to more than 2,000 poor children in La Habra.

Las Positas Elementary School has offered the Healthy Start program for a year. In addition to the health services, it offers food, clothing, transportation, shelter and rent money to needy students’ families.

The state grant would have been used to provide the program with a portable building to house it, as well as paying for furniture, medical supplies and a bilingual clerk to assist the program’s full-time nurse, who cares for sick children. A local hospital is ready to provide a full-time nurse to work at the school, but funds are needed for the rest, Las Positas Principal Tony Gianetto said.

Though doctors and nurses occasionally donate services at the school, the Friendly Hills Regional Medical Center nurse would work there eight hours a day, five days a week to care for Las Positas students and those at nearby Las Lomas Elementary School and Imperial Middle School, Gianetto said.

Not wanting to lose the nurse, Gianetto said he is determined to find money to pay for the “much-needed” program.

“We are looking,” Gianetto said. “We want to save it, and by making the needs of the children known, hopefully community service clubs, corporations and local businesses will be willing to donate money.”

Volunteers to the program are made up of a coalition of service clubs, police, medical professionals and others who provide children and their families with after-school recreation programs, homework assistance, health and dental care, counseling and other needs.

“We will continue with what we can provide that doesn’t cost any money for now,” Gianetto said.

“We need the full-time nurse though, because parents will keep their children home from school when they get ill, and some don’t have easy access to medical services, so the kids may be out of school more than necessary,” he said. “That affects attendance, which affects progress at school and their ability to become successful adults.”