Skokie Community Foundation provided us with $10,000 to start up
a voucher program to help serve students vision, dental and mental health needs.
A program like this, the voucher program can make a difference.
It can support families in many different ways.
I think the neat part about getting a community foundation
grant was the ability to we found some new partners.
So through the vision
side of the voucher program, we created a new partner and developed a partnership
and that is ongoing and continues locally here, a local business.
We do have a student, for example, who was in fifth grade not too long ago.
We did a screener here that we were told that she needed glasses.
Thankfully, we were able to get the student with
with the voucher to see a doctor, got a full eye exam,
came back a few days later with glasses, and it was night and day.
We also were able to enhance and really kind of solidify a program
with turning point our mental health provider.
Getting to know
the students a little bit more were able to provide them with some resources
here for social emotional learning, but that's not always enough.
So with this program, they actually skipped the line
and the students received the supports that they needed.
They talked to a therapist on a regular basis,
and that actually led for them to see them after those six weeks, which is amazing.
We continue to work with preferred dentistry over the the dental services.
So we've had students who are crying because their teeth are hurting.
They've they've never seen a dentist.
They haven't had that privilege to be able to see a dentist.
Right.
So we remove all those barriers
for the family, for the student, and we support the kids.
And then they're here and they're happy and they're excited.
It really allowed us to take an idea that our program director had
and we've had it for several years and we wanted to address the needs.
You know, just the basic health needs of our students
and didn't have a funding source for it.
So we turn to the Skokie Community Foundation.
We applied for a grant and it really gave us the seed money
to start up a program to kind of learn
through the growing pains of developing partnerships and relationships
and how the vouchers work and accounting for them and begin to address a need.
And it actually became kind of a data point for us as well
to see what was the need and how a program like this can work in our school system.
So a student, when they grow up, they'll remember,
Hey, someone was there to help me.
I want to give back and I want to help as well.