Highlands County 4-H Youth Has His Sights on Community Service
Article written by 4-H S.E.R.V.E. club member: Walker Dressel Article Edited by: Highlands County 4-H Program Assistant : Alexis Cooper
Walker Dressel is an active member of the 4-H club S.E.R.V.E. He is 14 years old and in 8th grade at Sebring Middle School. This year he decided to do a community service project that would really help benefit those in the community in more ways than one. Below is his story.
The Samaritan’s Touch Care Center (STCC) is an extremely helpful organization that helps families in Highlands County that can’t afford their own medical care. Since their opening in October of 2016 the have helped over 2,600 Highlands County residents and have given over 35 million dollars in health care services. They have 110 volunteer doctors in Highlands County that work for completely free. They are doing two big projects, one of those is a collection for dentures.
The other project, the one I’m taking part in, is an eyeglass frames collection project. This project works with three groups of people, the STCC, 17 eye doctors that are willing to give free eye exams, and me. The STCC is currently working on a grant for lenses from the state, and, when combined with the collected frames, and the free eye exams, can give glasses to people who can’t afford them. So far, this project has already helped 28 people and there are many on a waiting list.
For an example on how this project helped someone, I’m going to tell you of a man who almost lost his job. This man came into STCC and said that he was about to lose his job because the frames to his glasses broke. Because of his broken frame, he could hardly see and so, he couldn’t safely drive to work. All that he needed were a pair of $35 frames to fix his glasses. This man almost lost his job and it took one frame to fix the problem.
Our goal is to collect at least 50 frames so that we could have a good starting point for everyone on the waiting list. As of now, the total number of collected frames is around 45, so we should be over our goal. Just because we reach our goal, doesn’t mean that we stop collecting frames, people will always need frames in Highlands County.
Collection boxes can be found at Dr. Andrew T. Kulick’s dentist office and The Front Porch at Prescott’s/Prescott Lawn & Pest Control. Frames may also be dropped off at Samaritan’s Touch Care Center. Don’t forget to mention Walker’s name!
To join Highlands County 4-H or become an adult volunteer, please contact 4-H Agent: Katharine McWhorter or 4-H Program Assistant: Alexis Cooper at: 863-402-6540.
To keep updated on all things UF/IFAS Highlands County Extension visit our website at:
http://highlands.ifas.ufl.edu/index.shtml and like our Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/2016highlands.ifas.ufl.edu/
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