Capital Campaign Raising Funds for Health Center At Rockdale Elementary School
May 31, 2000
Contact: Jim Feuer, jfeuer@chmcc.org
CINCINNATI -- A $158,000 capital campaign is underway to build a pediatric primary care health center on the campus of Rockdale Elementary School in Avondale.
Aided by a $350,000 operations grant from the Health Foundation of Greater Cincinnati, leaders from Rockdale, Children's Hospital Medical Center of Cincinnati, and Avondale, have organized the fundraising initiative titled "One child,one school, one block, one neighborhood, one community."
"If not you, who? If not now, when?" asked capital campaign co-chairs Lynwood Battle and Jan-Michele Lemon Kearney in a fundraising letter.
There is a direct link between basic health needs and academic achievement, and last year, 90-95 percent of Rockdale's students did not meet targets on proficiency and off-grade tests. "If you treat the illness, you eliminate one of the barriers for students at Rockdale," says Gene Robinson Jr., a community representative on the health center's executive committee.
Rockdale students, themselves, have participated in the capital campaign, which ends May 31. More than 600 students participated recently in the week-long "Every Penny Counts" campaign, raising $362.
Campaign organizers hope this kind of resourcefulness will help the health center become a symbol of community and academic health in the urban neighborhood, according to Chris Kraus, J.D.,project director and adolescent advocacy manager at Children's Hospital Medical Center of Cincinnati. The center will serve an estimated 1,200 students a year. Parents will participate in health center operations, and teachers will be part of the comprehensive health education program.
