The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Mobile help trucks
District buying buses for mobile food, medical services to care for students
Lorain City Schools plans a food and medical road show for students and their families.
On Sept. 14, Lorain Schools approved plans to buy the first two used school buses to start a fleet of five that will be converted to mobile kitchens and medical clinics.
Board members Mark Ballard, Bill Sturgill, Yvonne Johnson, Courtney Nazario and Timothy Williams approved spending $9,900 for the buses.
The school administration will request another three in November, said CEO/Superintendent Jeff Graham.
“What this will allow us to do, is to provide better care for our families and their children and separate that from our schools,” Graham said.
The first two will be built to serve as a mobile kitchen and as a mobile Mercy Health Clinic, he said.
The additional buses later will become a mobile dental clinic, an eye clinic and another food truck, said Stephen Sturgill, executive director of the district’s Health & Family Services Engagement Center.
Graham said the school officials and staff looked at trucks for mobile services during his first stint as Lorain Schools superintendent.
The trucks can cost up to $500,000 with maintenance in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, he said.
Instead, Lorain-based Mobile Outreach Solutions will outfit the buses, Graham said.
Buying the bus and converting to a health clinic is estimated to be about $150,000, he said.
The school district will use money available from the Ohio Department of
Education, which allocated money through the U.S. Department of Education’s Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief, or ESSER, program.
The schools also will work with Mercy Health and the hospital’s foundation to cover costs for the first health care bus.
The other will be a food service bus.
“The plan for that is to feed our children,” with breakfast, lunch and dinners, especially in summer, Graham said.
Lorain Schools gets state money to reimburse costs of student breakfasts and lunches, Graham said.
Now, the district will expand to dinners.
Feeding students is the only thing Lorain Schools can spend that money on, Graham said.
Sturgill credited Mary
Mayse, district executive director of operations, for her work inspecting buses to buy.
He displayed the layouts of the buses for Lorain
Schools.
The district will work with food service provider Aramark on the design for the food truck.
Lorain Schools currently has a Mercy Health Clinic at Washington Elementary, 1025 W. 23rd St.
Graham also thanked Edwin Oley, market president for Mercy Health — Lorain, and the health system staff for being “incredibly responsive” to general health care needs and in the novel coronavirus pandemic.
On Sept. 14, Mercy Health staff made a shortterm plan to accommodate parents who were turned away due to maximum capacity for the Mercy Health clinic
The clinic is open 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday to Friday, at Washington Elementary.
“The plan for that is to feed our children,” with breakfast, lunch and dinners, especially in summer, Graham said.