Ready or not, it’s back to school season! Each year during this time, many of our campuses engage in different fundraisers, drives, and events to help support local children and families at they head back to school. This year is no different for Ross Medical Education Center in Evansville, Indiana. They knew that they wanted to give back to the Evansville community. But they decided that they wanted to do something different that would impact the back to school drive this year.
They also knew that they wanted to support their own students, many of whom have children also going back to school. So, putting less of a financial burden on Ross students during this time was important. After brainstorming a few different ideas, they finally decided that since they are a medical education center, they would take a medical approach to the Back to School Campaign, as this is an area that is often overlooked. During the summer months, the students participated in a Band-Aid Drive, bringing in donations of band-aids.
To make it a little more fun, they decided to count the bandages individually, not by the box. The campus had a band-aid cut out so that the students could see the daily tally, and they had a lot of fun competing between classes to collect the most. Overall, the Evansville campus collected a total of 38,000 (380 boxes) of band-aids! All of these were then donated to local Lodge Community School in the Evansville School Corporation. The class that brought in the largest quantity was the evening Medical Insurance Billing and Office Administration class, which also happens to be one of the smallest!
Lodge Community School is often low on supplies and has to rely on help from students and families for supplies that often might be in short supply, especially in the nurse’s office. Commonly school supply drives are great for getting supplies for in the classroom, but people tend to forget about the other areas of need that might not be as obvious. “The thing i liked about this drive is that it was so economical for students, the students felt like they were really helping without a high investment cost, and it was a great way to give back in ways that people don’t normally think about,” shared Marla Kempf, Lead Instructor in the Evansville Dental Assistant program.