July 17, 2022 – First Christian Church, in partnership with Crossing Healthcare, held their Jumpstart back-to-school event this weekend. The event provided kids with health physicals, vaccinations, dental exams, and eye exams needed for the coming school year completely free of charge.
The event saw over 400 families register for the event with an average of 2 children per family.
BJ Leonard, Missions Pastor at First Christian Church said that the event started in 2011 when the church saw that there were a lot of school children were missing school days every year due to lack of required school physicals.
“A couple of us at the church put our heads together and decided if there was something we could do, we need to do it”, said Leonard.
That first year was hosted at First Christian church and welcomed around 60 children. Since then, the church has partnered with Crossing Healthcare and has grown tremendously. Additional volunteer practitioners provide the dental and eye exams on site.
“One of the great things about this is that if they find that a student needs eye-glasses, the prescription is filled and mailed directly to them” Leonard said.
The event also was assisted with the help of around 50 volunteers from the Church as well as over 30 volunteers from YLIA and volunteer translators from the Jerry J Dawson Civic Leadership Institute.
