School Health Corporation announces its second annual $10,000 sweepstakes winner

Hanover Park, IL- School Health Corporation has announced its second annual $10,000

Sweepstakes Winner: Purche Avenue Elementary School in Gardena, CA 90249. Given the recent budget cuts throughout the entire state of California, these unexpected funds could not have come at a better time. For the past two years, School Health Corporation has entered customers' names into the Sweepstakes each time they placed an order. Mail-in entries were also accepted. This year it happened to be Carol Warsaw, Office Manager for 17 years at the Purche Avenue Elementary School in Gardena, CA. Purche Avenue Elementary School is part of the Los Angeles Unified School District. Carol recently retired in June from her great service at the school. She was very pleased to know that an order she had initiated resulted in some great funding resources to help the children she had served for so many years.

The focus of this year's Sweepstake is to improve the health and fitness program of the school.

Obesity, diabetes and other chronic health conditions plague our children with limited qualified health care professionals to protect them. In California, only 5 percent of schools had a full-time nurse this year, down from 7 percent in 1998, according to surveys by the California State PTA.

"When you look at the kinds of medications administered every day in school, it's incredible and scary," said Nancy Spradling, executive director of the California School Nurses Organization.

The current average ratio of credentialed school nurses to students in California is approximately 1:4000, based on statistics submitted for the 2007-08 school year. This places California at the bottom when compared to the rest of the country. But averages are misleading. Half of the approximately 1000 school districts report zero school nurses, and those that report them are many times maintaining ratios far above that "average".

There continues to be a rise in chronic and acute illness in students, a rise in number of special needs students and a rise in the need for more school nurses to manage health of all of these children while they attend school and participate in activities throughout the full school "day".

Many school districts are challenged with that need: with funds being cut every year, school nurses are a very precious commodity. Many times, it is office managers and health clerks left to handle the ever more fragile condition of the children in our California Schools.

For Los Angeles Unified School District, they have approximately 600 school nurses to care for 705,000 students in 936 schools.

Yolanda Las Marias, Health Services Coordinator for District 8 of the LAUSD said, "We are all very excited that Purche Elementary is receiving $ 10,000.00 as a result of the School Health yearly drawing. We understand that the stipulation is to use this wonderful donation for "Sickness and Health" which we will do.

Yolanda says, "I met with Mr. Thaduss Jackson, Principal of Purche Elementary and our Elementary Director, Mr. Hector DuBon yesterday. The whole office staff at Purche Elementary are pleasantly surprised! Of course, I heard that Melanie, our office clerk there did not believe the announcement when she received the call from Lisa Kuehl, Western Regional Manager of School Health Corporation. When Lisa explained to Melanie that the school was receiving $10,000.00, Melanie asked "What is the catch ?" We were all laughing about it."

"I'm pleased that the focus of this year's Sweepstakes is for health and fitness", said Lisa Kuehl from School Health. "There are two phrases I often hear stated by school nurses, "Prevention is the best medicine" and "Healthy Kids Learn Better". They believe, all they can do, is do their best, one school at a time and one child at a time."

School Health Corporation is the leading supplier of medical supplies and equipment to school nurses, athletic trainers, and other specialty healthcare professionals. More than 60,000 schools rely on School Health for their medical supply needs. Founded in 1950, the company has evolved from a specialized distributor of basic supplies to a consultative solutions provider for major health initiatives including vision and hearing screening, emergency response preparedness, infection control, and wellness plans. Located in a 50,000 square-foot facility in Hanover Park, Ill., School Health Corporation fulfills orders generated through its national sales force, direct mail catalogs, and e-commerce websites.

For more information, call 1-866-323-5465