With precautions for the coronavirus in place, the Florida Department of Health in Pinellas County (DOH-Pinellas) is again offering its annual summer back-to-school clinic services to students in advance of the 2020-21 school year. Children and youth entering kindergarten through grade 12 can receive services.
With funding from the Juvenile Welfare Board of Pinellas and support from the Pinellas County School Board, the DOH-Pinellas’ school-based health clinics will provide school, sports and well child physicals, including immunizations, at no cost for clients in need. Vision screenings will be provided by Preserve Vision Florida. Assistance for glasses and exams for qualifying clients will be available.
The services will be provided at no cost by appointment only now through Aug. 11. For appointments, call 727-249-7591 from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. A parent or legal guardian must bring the child’s immunization and medical records and must be present for the child to receive services.
Appointment hours are 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., Monday through Thursday. The service locations are at these school-based health clinic locations:
Pinellas Park High School: 6305 118th Ave N., Largo
Gibbs High School: 850 34th St. S., St. Petersburg
Boca Ciega High School: 924 58th St. S., Gulfport
Please note that staff will be taking these precautions to protect you:
Everyone entering will be asked screening questions
One adult per family may enter, unless two or more children are younger than 12
Each person—child and adult– must have a face covering
For more information about DOH-Pinellas, visit the website.
The national debate of late is focused on the return of young people to grade school, high school, and college. But safe, high-quality childcare for infants, toddlers, and other preschool-age children is even more of a concern for parents getting back to work.
“The economic recovery for our entire country is dependent on access to childcare,” says Lindsay Carson, CEO of the Early Learning Coalition of Pinellas County.
When schools closed in March, parents working remotely from home could keep their school-age children occupied with online learning. That may still be an option for some families as schools begin to reopen this month.
But that’s an impossible task with a 1-or-2-or-3-year-old. Think of the Zoom conference calls interrupted by a toddler demanding much-needed attention and the family dog barking in the background of mom or dad’s virtual office. The mute button comes in handy, so it may be possible to work like this short-term, most agree, but few believe it’s sustainable long-term.
Safe, affordable, high-quality childcare provided by a licensed center is essential for businesses to reopen. But in the six months since COVID-19 hit, many childcare centers nationwide, as well as in the Tampa Bay Area, have shouldered a heavy burden, say local industry leaders.
According to the National Association for the Education of Young Children, the nation’s early childhood education programs were already challenged financially. COVID-19 made it even worse.
What does that mean going forward for parents and children? How will it impact businesses? Will childcare center providers, many of whom are small business owners, be able to stay afloat financially?
“Childcare was an industry that was very fragile before COVID,” says Carson. “There wasn’t a huge profit margin or a lot of reserves to fall back on. I’m not saying the sky is falling, but just that the industry is vulnerable.”
Imagination Station in St. Petersburg
Jackie Lang is the owner of Imagination Station in St. Petersburg, a preschool that provides early learning care for up to 44 children, ages 2 to 5.
Initially, when COVID first hit, Imagination Station stayed open. That is until everyone realized the significance of what was happening, says Lang.
As enrollment started to drop, she made the decision to close the center to give teachers and families the opportunity to shelter in place at home. “I anticipated that I would be closed about a week, but it turned out that we were closed for three weeks,” says Lang.
Imagination Station reopened in April and has stayed open every day since then.
“Many of our parents work at essential businesses and they have no choice — they have to go to work,” says Lang. “It’s our goal to keep the children happy and safe so the parents can bring their children here and not worry.”
She is also proud of her staff and the safety precautions they are taking. “Inside our walls, you would never know there was a pandemic out there,” says Lang. “Our teachers have come to work every day with a positive attitude, even when they don’t know what they are going to be exposed to, or what they are going to bring home to their own families.”
At the moment, the center is operating at 70 percent capacity. That might change as more parents go back to work, but no one knows exactly what will happen, says Lang.
Fortunately, Lang is able to keep her center open regardless of enrollment and still not worry about funding. About 20 percent of her families are self-pay, says Lang, while 80 percent are part of either Florida’s Voluntary Prekindergarten or the Florida school readiness program.
VPK is a free program for all 4-year-olds in the state, while the school readiness program gives younger economically disadvantaged children access to early education. Lang receives funding for those programs through the Early Learning Coalition of Pinellas County.
“If not for the support we have received from the city and from the Early Learning Coalition, I don’t know where we would be,” she says.
The high costs of reopening
Many privately owned preschools and even some faith-based centers are not so fortunate. Expenses related to COVID-19 have taken their toll.
“The biggest issue is that safety protocols are not free,” says Carson of the Early Learning Coalition.
There is the cost of buying personal protective equipment for the teachers and special cleaning supplies to sanitize the facility. Some centers have purchased additional toys and educational materials. In addition, CDC-recommended guidelines limiting the number of children per group mean smaller class sizes.
“Smaller class sizes reduce the facility’s capacity,” says Carson. “While that’s important, it adds to the expense of running a center.”
There is also the uncertainty of planning for adequate staffing. Licensing guidelines mandate the correct ratio of students to teachers. Child care is a labor-intensive industry.
If a teacher is exposed to COVID, staffing becomes even more of a challenge.
“They have to quarantine for 14 days and wait for testing results to come back before they can return to work,” says Carson. “Some centers are hiring additional teachers just in case.”
To help through tough times, some centers got a Paycheck Protection Program loan through the Small Business Association. Others qualified for funding through the Florida CARES grant program or St. Petersburg’s Fighting Chance Fund.
“Public school providers are not doing to go out of business, but many small business owners and faith-based businesses may find it more difficult,” says Carson. “Their revenue is down at a time their costs are up.”
Yet despite everything, Carson says childcare center providers “have gone above and beyond. They’ve done what they had to do because it’s the right thing to do.”
Finding solutions for families in poverty and at risk
The Juvenile Welfare Board funds 11 child care centers in Pinellas County, serving over 800 children from low-income families as part of its mission to better prepare children for grade school.
When COVID hit, JWB was prepared to doing everything possible to “provide the safest possible environment,” says COO Judith Warren.
Childcare staff went through extensive training. Rigorous cleaning protocols were implemented, and best practices such as taking temperatures and curbside drop-off and pick-up became the norm.
Despite these safety precautions, parents were still worried about their children, says Warren. Over the summer, many JWB-funded centers were at half-capacity and attendance was sporadic.
“It’s a difficult time and our parents are trying to make the best possible decision for their families,” says Karen Boggess, JWB performance and evaluation manager.
“We typically serve families in poverty and at risk,” says Boggess, ”so trying to decide if their child will be safe and healthy puts an extra burden on them, while they’re trying to keep their job and put food on the table. “
But as “daunting a decision as it is for parents to make, we definitely want children to return as schools and businesses open up. We know that kids who are visible in the community are going to thrive better,” says Warren.
Creative Play Preschool in Gulfport
Kya Belcher, the owner of Creative Play Preschool in Gulfport, closed for five months when enrollment at her center dropped significantly. Some parents had lost jobs. Others thought it best to keep their children at home. Belcher applied for grants and a PPP loan to help keep the center open. But in the end, it wasn’t possible to stay open.
Now finally, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Creative Play Preschool will reopen August 12, but with a completely new concept. With overwhelming support from parents, Belcher has shifted the school’s curriculum to an environmental and wellness focus and is in the process of transforming the campus into a mini-farm.
While it has been challenging coping with the financial impact of COVID and the uncertainty of everything, Belcher is now able to see it as a gift.
“We are thinking outside the box and excited about the changes,” says Belcher. “We have a two-year plan and will be documenting everything to create a model for other centers. We’re teaching children about the earth and about sustainability.”
On Saturday, August 1, the center held a family farm day with parents, children, and interested community members lending a hand. An outdoor patio is now a large outdoor classroom with shaded areas, misters, and fans. There are worm boxes, raised gardening beds, compost bins, and a dozen fruit trees with plans for up to a dozen more.
They start with macaroni and cheese. Kids love mac-n-cheese. Especially when it’s homemade.
So on a sultry Thursday in late July, in their sprawling catering kitchen in Palm Harbor, Jeff and Laurie Simpson and a dozen employees boil 95 pounds of pasta, melt 35 pounds of American and cheddar cheese and add five gallons of milk, “to make it nice and creamy.”
They cook 100 lbs. of hot dogs, sliced into bite-sized pieces. Make mounds of baked beans.
Enough to feed 500 children across Pinellas County.
“It’s very fulfilling, knowing who this food is for,” Jeff says. “It’s far from what we were doing. But it’s saved our business and helped so many families.”
Bartolo Romero seals a meal at Delectables Fine Catering as Laurie Simpson, director of catering, stands behind him. The Palm Harbor business is making 2,500 kid-friendly meals each week. [ JONAH HINEBAUGH | Times ]
The Simpsons and their friend Nick Adams have been running Delectables Fine Catering for 33 years. This summer was to be their busiest yet, with hundreds of high-end weddings, banquets and corporate events.
Then the coronavirus hit. They lost $500,000 in bookings and had to lay off their 25 employees. They were cleaning out the freezers when the call came: Could they make meals for kids?
***
Throughout the pandemic, churches and food pantries have been feeding folks across Tampa Bay. Many offer meals and groceries people can pick up.
But what if you don’t have a car? Or money for an Uber? You can’t carry a cooler on a bike or lug boxes onto a bus. Especially if you have kids.
Caitlyn Peacock has been worrying about those kids for years. As director of the Tampa Bay Network to End Hunger, she knows they are fed through free lunch programs at school. But during summer, they often go hungry.
“Only 20 percent of kids who qualify for free lunch actually get them over the summer,” Peacock says. “We’d been looking for a way to fill that gap.”
Last October, she and her staff began planning a Meals on Wheels for Kids program. Modeled after the one for the elderly, volunteers would deliver five hot meals to each child’s doorstep every week — plus groceries. “We’d planned to start June 1, after school got out, and were set to serve 20 kids,” Peacock says. “In March, when school got cancelled, we knew we had to look at this in a different way.”
There are now at least 180,000 “food insecure” people in Pinellas, a 50 percent increase from before the pandemic. More than 7,000 are children whose only dependable source of food was school meals.
Peacock reached out to Daystar Life Center, which offered food from its pantry. She talked to churches and recreation centers and The Kind Mouse, a local feeding organization. She got funding from the St. Petersburg Free Clinic, Juvenile Welfare Board, Bill Edwards Foundation, Community Foundation of Tampa Bay, Milkey Family Foundation and dozens of private donors. She raised $500,000, signed up 250 volunteers and found caterers willing to cook 2,500 homemade meals every week for $4 each.
The caterers hired back half of their employees. They signed a new contract with their food distributor, ordering different ingredients. Menus feature foods they think kids enjoy: BBQ chicken, turkey and gravy, lasagna, chili, braised beef tips over egg noodles.
They bought take-out containers and a food sealing machine, so they could vacuum-pack each meal. “We’ve never done take-out, or frozen our food. This is all new to us,” Jeff says. They store the meals in blue, rolling coolers, about the size of filing cabinets.
Peacock had planned to have volunteers deliver everything in their cars. But the coolers are too big. So she called Pinellas County Schools. Since the buses weren’t running, could she borrow some?
Initially, she asked out-of-work bus drivers to volunteer. Several did. Then she got a grant from the Foundation for a Healthy St. Petersburg that allowed her to pay the drivers.
Funding was slated to continue until school starts. But now that so many kids aren’t going back, volunteers will keep bringing food through December — at least. “Our goal is to be feeding 4,500 kids in Pinellas by the end of the year,” Peacock says.
Recently, the program added 50 kids of migrant workers in Wimauma, who get their own menu: chicken fajitas, cheese enchiladas, tamales with salsa verde. It also is accepting applications for kids on a new route in Dade City. “And we plan to add 2,000 kids in Hillsborough County and 1,000 in Pasco.”
In the last month, Peacock has gotten more than a dozen calls from nonprofits across the country looking for advice on how to start their own programs.
“We’re seeing all these kids still stuck at home for who knows how long,” she says. “We’re seeing that this works.”
***
On a sunny Saturday, two days after caterers made the mac-n-cheese, Jack Beary climbs onto the loading dock behind the Catherine Hickman Theater in Gulfport and unlocks the door. The 173 seats have been empty since March, when all performing arts shut down — and Beary lost his job with the city.
But this morning, he turns on the lights and stacks empty boxes on the stage.
With funds from the feeding kids program, the city was able to hire Beary back to oversee the theater on days when nonprofits drop off pallets of groceries and volunteers come to pack boxes.
About 10 a.m., they start showing up, all wearing masks. Many have been here before. “Good morning! Thanks for coming!” calls Bailey Cross, who is wheeling a cart of grapefruit through the tables. “We’ve got new families today, so don’t forget the boxes backstage.”
Mark Adkins places fruit in boxes at the Catherine Hickman Theater in Gulfport. He was a first-time volunteer that Saturday who came looking for a way to help. [ JONAH HINEBAUGH | Times ]
Cross works with Peacock at the Network to End Hunger. She writes a number on each box, to signify how many kids are in that house. She gives one volunteer a giant sack of rice, a box of Ziploc bags and a scoop. “Two cups for each kid,” she says. Another volunteer divides a big bag of pinto beans.
Bailey Cross, a Tampa Bay Network to End Hunger site coordinator, marks each box with the number of children in the household. Kids get groceries from Ramen to raisins, enough to share with their families. [ JONAH HINEBAUGH | Times ]
There are crates of apples, oranges, carrots, sweet potatoes, corn. Boxes of cereal, tuna, spaghetti. Applesauce, oatmeal, animal crackers — all donated.
A dozen people sort everything into the boxes. Most volunteers are retired teachers or social workers. They came looking for a way to give back — and get out of their homes.
“It’s fun to see the different food we get each week,” says Emily Rowe, a kindergarten teacher who retired last year. “I think about all the kids who don’t have enough to eat, and how excited they’ll be to open their box and see what’s inside.”
At the theater, volunteers pack 35 boxes with groceries. At other sites across Tampa Bay, other volunteers are doing the same.
By 11 a.m., the pallets are empty. The boxes are full.
Since the Gulfport theater can’t host plays or concerts, it is serving as a storage facility for donated food. Every week, volunteers get different produce and non-perishables to distribute to families across Pinellas County. [ JONAH HINEBAUGH | Times ]
***
Eight school buses are idling in the depot on 49th Street. In the windows, in white shoe polish, someone has written “Meals for Kids.”
It’s 9:35 on a bright Monday morning, two days since volunteers packed the groceries.
Tangela Butler is in the back of her bus, helping the caterers’ driver secure two coolers with red seat belts.
Ever since she was a girl, Butler has wanted to drive a “big, yellow school bus.” She’s had the job for 17 years. “I love the middle-schoolers, who are a challenge,” she says.
Tangela Butler, a Pinellas school bus driver, checks the frozen meals from Delectables Fine Catering before leaving to pick up boxes of groceries. She ties down the coolers with straps meant for securing wheelchairs. [ JONAH HINEBAUGH | Times ]
She turns into the theater, backs into the loading dock, where volunteers are waiting to load the groceries.
Asianna Lotito, a real estate agent, took the morning off to help. She slides into the front seat and asks Butler, “How many stops today?”
On this route: 13 families, 35 kids, 175 meals.
***
The first house is light blue, with an old trampoline out front. One child lives here, the sheet says. At 10:30 a.m., a volunteer texts, “We’re here!” and Lotito loads frozen meals on top of the groceries. As soon as she leaves the box by the door, an adolescent girl comes out, waving.
Next is a house with green shutters, and three kids inside. When a woman in pajama pants answers the door, a toddler peeks between her knees, grinning.
Five kids live at the next stop, Mastry’s Apartments. “Let’s give them two boxes,” Butler says. “And anything extra.”
As Lotito carries the first box toward the fence, a small girl in a blue dress runs out to open the gate. “Hi!” calls Lotito. “Don’t you look pretty!” The girl’s mom comes out, pulling a rolling cart.
Amari Silva is 6 — the youngest in the family. She trails her mom closely, staring at the boxes. “You need help?” asks Lotito.
Kim DeGroff shakes her head. “No, we got this. Thank you! She’s been waiting for you.”
Amari Silva, 6, left, stands next to her mom, Kim DeGroff, as she rearranges frozen meals that had just been dropped off. The girl couldn’t wait to see what was in the box. [ JONAH HINEBAUGH | Times ]
DeGroff is a stay-home mom. The dad of her two youngest children is a tree trimmer who has been out of work. They don’t have a car. All five kids were getting free lunch at school but have been stuck at home since March, crowded into the apartment.
“I can’t even tell you how much it has helped,” DeGroff says of the meals program. “The food is such high quality — so much better than school lunch. And the groceries keep my pantry stocked.”
As soon as DeGroff carries the boxes to the kitchen, Amari dives in, asking, “What did we get?” She sets aside the raisins, animal crackers and fruit.
Then, squealing, she holds up the tray with mac-n-cheese.
