Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Children's Week plans coming together

Plans for Children's Week, April 19-23, are being finalized.

The Prescott-Nevada County Health Alliance, at its recent meeting, discussed specifics of what will happen during Children's Week.

Weather permitting, there will be a parade with the children walking around the courthouse square. Plans have been finalized on the fire safety house, which will again be set up at the old gym at Prescott High School. The Science Fair will also return for the week.

Something new, though, will be the "body walk". Candace Carrie' is working on a grant for this project, which will require a minimum of 300 students in order to qualify. The maximum number is 420.

Each child participating will be required to pay $1 for the maintenance of the equipment. However, each child will receive an activity book and other items for being involved.

The "body walk" is exactly what it sounds like  walking around the body. Children will literally tour the human body and be taught by organ-wise guys (dolls). The organ-wise guys were created in Georgia through the Kellogg Foundation and are characters used in teaching children about the human body.

Teachers will be trained in advance of the "body walk" so they can show the children how things work.

The "body walk" body is 30 feet by 30 feet. Children will start in the mouth and travel through the organs, where someone will be stationed at each one.

The most complicated part, Carrie' said, will be timing the children for the tours. Plans are to have students in the third and fourth grades from Prescott, Emmet and Nevada schools do the "body walk", which has 14 stations and will require about 30 people to work it. The "body walk" will be done Friday, April 23.

Carrie' informed the group the PNCHA is the "supreme" coalition in the state. She learned this at a recent meeting in Little Rock, where everyone had apparently heard of the organization and wanted information about it.

Philip McAdams is in charge of the fire safety house. He said it will be here the Tuesday and Wednesday of Children's Week (April 20-21) and was a hit last year.

The training session for the fire house will be March 15 at the Nevada County Rescue Unit building, when several rural volunteer fire departments will be meeting. Anyone involved in fire safety, he said, should be at this meeting.

Hines Trucking, he said, has volunteered to move the house. The house requires a one-ton truck to be moved from place to place.

Prescott Superintendent Hyacinth Deon said the district will provide space for Children's Week.

In the past, she said, the Science teachers made activities for children, and if the PNCHA wants them to do it again, the group needs to talk with the teachers in advance.

Joyce Gibson, librarian, pointed out April 19-23 is also National Library Week. The Prescott-Nevada County Library, she said, will be hosting a community coffee from 9:30-11 a.m. and have a children's story time.

The story time will be done on April 22. Children who come to the library on this day, she said, will be given books. The first batch has already been ordered for the event.

On March 2, Gibson said, the library will be celebrating the birthday of Dr. Suess, noted children's author. Readings of his work will be done from 9:30 a.m. until 5 p.m., and volunteers are needed to help with this project, which is open to the public.

Mary Alice Blevins is working on a grant to help education about 250 people on diabetes.

A program exists to teach those with diabetes how to cope and remain healthy, but people tend to drop out. The main reason for this, she said, is money.

"We get people with pre-diabetes (those who have blood-sugar readings of 110-126)," she said, "but insurance companies don't know about this."

But, she said, there is money for this from the tobacco lawsuit and AllCare Pharmacy is working on it. However, AllCare is a for-profit business, and the grants are for non-profit agencies. The Prescott Lions Club, she continued, has agreed to work with AllCare for the grant. However, a doctor will be needed as a referral source for the grant.

If approved, the funds will be used to help low income people with pre-diabetes and diabetes.

"We will ask doctors if they want to be part of this," she said. "Doctors are doing the best they can, without trying not to incur too many expenses for their patients. They will play a major roll in the screenings."

The American Diabetes Association (ADA), she said, didn't think it would be wise to try and screen the entire population, as this isn't cost effective. The idea adopted will be to check risk factors and go this route.

Some testing could be done at the PNCHA's Health Fair, as there are full lipid tests available that could be used with the available equipment.

There was discussion about how this could be done and what cholesterol level should be used as a base to tell those tested they need to see a doctor. It was pointed out without a full test any reading used would be misleading, because both the HDL and LDL readings are needed. Still, it was decided to tell those who have readings of 200 or more to see their doctors.

Edie Greenwood said the grant for prostate screenings has been used in several different counties. This was to test men over 50 for prostate cancer, or those 40 with a history of prostate cancer.

The outgoing officers were recognized by the PNCHA, while the new officers were approved. Kay Hendrix was named president; Phil McAdams, vice president; Alice Head, secretary; David Poole, treasurer; and John Miller reporter.