As a PTA mom at Moss Haven Elementary and then Forest Meadows Junior High, Janna Gardener has a fairly long history of looking at neighborhood schools from the outside in.
But it wasn’t until two years ago when Gardener became the nurse at Stults Road Elementary that she began looking from the inside out. As soon as her perspective changed, she recognized a severe need among Lake Highlands schoolchildren.
“I saw that students weren’t able to receive basic medical and dental services because their parents were the working poor. They made only enough money to put food on the table and pay for rent and utilities, sometimes working several jobs,” Gardener says.
The children who came to her often needed a doctor’s care, so she sent them to Vickery Health Center, a Parkland Hospital clinic site for Medicaid patients in our neighborhood. But the wait for an appointment was often three to six months depending on the severity of the illness, and Gardener found herself pushing uninsured and underinsured families to head to the emergency room.
She began digging into the statistics and discovered a disturbing fact: Of the 10,000 children in Lake Highlands elementary and secondary schools, a whopping 70 percent, or 7,000 children, quality for free and reduced lunches, a key poverty indicator.
“When I figured out what the statistics were, it almost knocked me down,” Gardener says. “I knew we had a need, but I guess I’ve been naïve, as were some of my friends and people in my church as I’ve talked to them.”
Mark Wingfield, associate pastor at Wilshire Baptist Church, called the statistics “shocking,” especially because most people would consider Lake Highlands an affluent community. As he and others learned the reality of the situation, they shared in Gardener’s dismay that the closest charity clinic is on Haskell near downtown.
“There’s no one serving the Lake Highlands zip codes, and that’s what we want to do,” Wingfield says.
Now, with three churches involved (Lake Highlands United Methodist, Gaston Baptist and Wilshire Baptist) plus dozens of neighbors, the group dubbed Healing Hands Ministries has raised $45,000 toward its goal of $300,000 – and it hasn’t even made its official debut.
That will happen Aug. 5 with a pool party fundraiser where the nonprofit will have a chance to tell its story and roll out its vision: a medical and dental clinic for both children and adults that focuses on preventative care as well as treatment. The clinic doesn’t have a site yet, but that doesn’t seem to matter. Everywhere the nonprofit turns, Gardener says, neighbors are rolling up their sleeves and asking how they can pitch in.
“There are other people just waiting to bring us medical equipment once we know where to take it,” Wingfield says.
