San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
EVENTS HELP SCHOOL KIDS
Parents check vaccinations, supplies off list
A party atmosphere enveloped the parents and children gathered outside CentroMed’s Palo Alto Clinic on Saturday, with music blaring as the kids lined up to receive school supplies and backpacks and participate in fun activities such as face painting.
Taking shelter under oak trees in the early morning heat, the families weren’t just getting what they needed to start the school year; they also received screenings to make sure they’re up to date on their immunizations. Those who needed updates or further checks of past immunizations were brought inside the brick CentroMed building.
The event, organized by the health care company, District 4 Councilman Rey Saldaña’s office and others, was just one of several sponsored over the
weekend, providing thousands of San Antonio children with school supplies, clothing and/ or health care services across the city.
Twenty-two children received vaccinations at the CentroMed event, which was funded by a combination of a grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and CentroMed, according to the company’s vice president of development and marketing, Ana Maria Garza Cortez. Organizers said 1,145 kids took home school supplies.
In one of the clinic’s rooms, 12-year-old Johnathan Fabiola sat on the examination bed looking down at his feet.
“I’m kinda nervous,” he said about the vaccinations he was about to get.
When nurse Alondra Guerrero came into the room, she became a whirlwind of activity as she got ready for Johnathan. She prepped the vaccines, which were for meningococcal, tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis, contained in two syringes, and grabbed supplies from the cabinets. Johnathan’s stepfather, Manuel Porras, 31, sat in a chair nearby with 7-yearold Lysette Alfrido as Guerrero rolled up Johnathan’s right shirt sleeve and injected one vaccine, then did the same on the left side. Johnathan barely had a chance to react.
Porras, a contract construction worker at Joint Base San Antonio - Lackland, who is originally from the Rio Grande Valley, said he grew up getting all of his vaccinations.
“I trust them,” he said of the doctor’s recommendations.
While the majority of Texas children receive their vaccinations, more parents are opting for vaccine exemptions for their children. The Texas Health and Human Services Department said that for the 2017-2018 school year, nearly 57,000 Texas students had at least one nonmedical exemption from shots that would otherwise be mandatory, or 1.07 percent of the stu- dents in the survey.
Dr. Juan Parra is the director of pediatrics for CentroMed, which operates at least a dozen locations in the San Antonio area. His focus is on educating parents about the risks of not vaccinating and the risks to the wider population.
“The more people that don’t vaccinate, then that herd immunity starts going down and then the exposure is there for the rest of them,” Parra said.
He said the immunity gained from vaccines for some children and adults isn’t as good as for other people, leaving them vulnerable to expo- sure if someone were to get sick with a disease and expose them to it.
Parra said parents shouldn’t use unreliable information they find on the internet and that multiple studies have found no link between vaccines and conditions such as autism.
“Come talk to their physician, get information from their physician,” Parras urged. “They’re going to have the most reliable information.”
In other back-to-school events Saturday, the Greehey Family Foundation joined with NuStar Energy and the San Antonio Tricentennial to pro- vide backpacks filled with school supplies, new shoes and dental care to about 200 children at Haven for Hope. The foundation also provided new shoes for nearly 800 kids at St. Jude’s Ranch for Children, Boysville, Arms of Hope, Roy Maas, the Salvation Army, the Children’s Shelter, St. PJ’s and SAMMinistries.
Also Saturday, District 1 Councilman Roberto Treviño joined with Telemundo 60 and the Spurs Coyote for an event that distributed 1,400 backpacks loaded with school supplies and provided participants in need with everything from flu shots to asthma screenings at Edison High School. The
San Antonio Food Bank was on hand to serve breakfast and lunch to the crowd.
At Pershing Elementary, about 1,000 backpacks with school supplies were distributed, and children got free haircuts.
And on Friday, Good Samaritan Community Services, with the help of numerous drives at schools, churches and businesses, gave out school supplies and other necessities to more than 250 students in first through 12th grades.