Teachers Health Trust (THT), the dedicated health plan for the educators and licensed professionals in Clark County, partners with the non-profit, Serving Our Kids Foundation, in an effort to ensure that no child goes hungry, especially during this pandemic, when schools are closed. Utilizing their preferred pharmacy partner, Alto Pharmacy, who provide always-free same-day prescription delivery to teachers and its members, the team is effectively able to provide contactless delivery for the meal bags, each week, for kids and parents who may be unable to get to the school during drop off times. Since launching in one week’s time, collectively, they have helped provide meal options for more than 210 children in need.
“Teachers Health Trust’s goal is to always protect the health of our members and their families. Especially during this pandemic, our team is as proactive as possible and committed to joining forces with impactful organizations, such as Serving Our Kids Foundation, to ensure a collaborative community of care,” says Michael Skolnik, CEO of Teachers Health Trust. “When we learned of this critical gap in direct outreach to students and lack of the ability to communicate and deliver meal bags, due to schools being closed, we wanted to immediately help.”
Serving Our Kids Foundation, delivers weekend food bags to K-8 students, who may not qualify for government nutrition or other backpack programs and would otherwise go hungry on Saturday and Sunday. The critical food bags are provided to more than 3,500 homeless and at-risk children, based on referrals by school principals, teachers and counselors. In addition to the meal bags, they also come with books provided by Spread the Word Nevada, more than 5,000 juice boxes, and over 5,000 granola bars.
In alignment with Teachers Health Trust, Alto Pharmacy, also focuses on exceptional concierge-care and serving the community. It was an ideal solution, with Clark County Schools being closed, to coordinate additional door to door deliveries to children in need, during their scheduled pharmacy routes in southern Nevada. Bang Le, the Pharmicist-in-Charge (PIC) of the new Alto Las Vegas center, “We will do this no matter what. We feel like we have a responsibility to do our part to support the teachers, students, and their families of Las Vegas. We have come together as one community; we are all in this together.”
Alto Pharmacy offers extended hours in evenings and on weekends for education and support from expert pharmacist, and 24/7 access through the Alto Pharmacy app, and always-free, same-day courier delivery of retail, and specialty prescription drugs directly to a safe place at your home. The courier service has enabled Alto to offer their services, helping children, during this critical time.
“Serving Our Kids is dealing with an unprecedented number of requests for weekend meal bags. We are working closely with teachers, school counselors and principals from across the valley who are reaching out to us on behalf of their students and families. Before the pandemic and the school closures, we delivered food to over 70 schools within CCSD – last week we provided weekend meal bags to kids from over 126 schools,” says Patricia Farley, Board President to Serving our Kids Foundation. “Our volunteers sort, bag and distribute thousands of weekend meal bags across the valley, but we weren’t able to reach all of our kids that we served during the regular school year due to the families’ lack of transportation. The school faculty we work with have been coming to our warehouse to pick-up food to deliver to their students in need, we deliver the weekend bags at key Distribution Centers, but we were still struggling to reach our kids who rely on us. Teachers Health Trust’s support has been a godsend, helping us reach hundreds of school kids on our lists. This is our mission, to serve schoolchildren in need in our community – no red tape, only compassion. We’ll continue as long as we need to. We want the parents to know we’re here, we want to make sure our kids have something to eat during the weekends. This is how we lead with love!”
The public can also help by buying designated food items from the Serving Our Kids online store or monetary donations at www.servingourkids.org or visit www.servingourkids.org or call 702-358-1056. Additionally, Teachers Health Trust is hosting a brand new FB Live series called Talk to THT. Their inaugural show is today, 4/9, at 4pm and will be hosted by the Teaching Today Podclass and will include Michael Skolnik, CEO of Teachers Health Trust, Matt Gamache-Asselin, CEO of Alto, and their announcement of their partnership with the non-profit. ‘The Talk to THT’ FB Live series will then move to every other Wednesday at 4pm and is intended to be an open forum for the THT teacher community to connect (facebook.com/fblive).
About Teachers Health Trust:
Teachers Health Trust (THT) is the health plan for all teachers and licensed professionals of the Clark County School District in Southern Nevada. Established in 1983 and servicing 40,000+ lives, our transformed mission focuses on delivering the best healthcare at affordable costs to a deserving community.
In 2019, under new leadership, Teachers Health Trust had to develop an unprecedented model for the teachers by thinking out-of-the-box while also embracing a 30,000-foot lens for how this new model can effectively impact healthcare nationwide. In one year, THT reinvented and transformed the organization & its mission with a focus on delivering the best healthcare at affordable costs to a deserving community. It believes in providing access, guidance, support and care for each member as they actively pursue their best and most positive health outcomes | teachershealthtrust.org | @THTHealthPlan
About Alto Pharmacy:
Alto’s mission is to fulfill medicines true purpose and improve quality of life for everyone who needs it. As a health-tech startup, we are doing everything we can to fix a broken system and bring world-class care to patients in need. The way we’ve done this is by creating a modern-day pharmacy | alto.com
About Serving Our Kids Foundation
Serving our Kids Foundation is dedicated to feeding and serving the needs of Clark County children. While there are governmental programs and other organizations that provide children in need with breakfast and lunch on weekdays during school, weekends can be an issue. Since 2012, Serving Our Kids has stepped in to fill the weekend nutrition gap of vulnerable kids and now assists 3,500 children, grades K-8, in 70 schools who would otherwise go hungry. Referrals for weekend food bags are up 27 percent over last year, but the actual number of kids needing weekend nutrition assistance is estimated between 8,000 to 10,000. The nonprofit organization mobilizes the strength of community volunteers and donations. In addition to non-perishable food items, personal care items also are collected. For information, donations, volunteering and partnership opportunities, visit https://www.servingourkids.org or call 702-358-1056.
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