In what has become a traditional before-school-starts event, the Annual Community Day, held by Churchill County Social Services, along with many of their Community Partners will be held this year, in person, on August 14, from 8 o’clock a.m. to noon at the Pennington Life Center. This year the event will be held both indoors and outdoors with plenty of activities for the kids including a bounce house.
Resource providers including the Churchill Community Coalition, the City of Fallon Police Department, the Churchill County Sheriff’s office, the Fallon/Churchill Fire Department, WNC Fallon Campus, and many more organizations are on-hand to give out school supplies to local youth, along with backpacks and other necessities.
“One of the biggest additions we are going to have this year,” said Shannon Ernst, Director of Social Services, “is back-to-school immunizations.” She has been working with Dr. Summer Stephens, Superintendent of the Churchill County School District on a plan to provide the regular immunizations required for school children, along with the COVID vaccine. “The more we get vaccinated the more we get open, the more we stay open,” she said.
There will not be a vendor application process this year as there has been in the past, but community partners are encouraged to attend and set up their booths completely by 7:30 a.m.
The biggest concern is making sure there are enough back-to-school supplies so vendors are asked to bring at least one item that they can give out to the 400 students who are expected to attend, along with 800 adults.
Last year the event was held at the Fairgrounds as a drive-through process with extensive considerations for the COVID situation. Prior to that, the event was held at Oats Park.
Reports were given by several other Community Partners including the Healthcare for Homeless Veterans, the Neighbor Network of Northern Nevada, the Churchill County School District, and the JustServe.org organization.
JustServe.org is a community volunteer matching program, run by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints aimed at putting together service opportunities with available volunteers. Those needing volunteers to help with local community projects can list their project on the website and those wishing to volunteer can go to the website, put in their zip code, and see a list of opportunities in their community to help out by providing their volunteer service. Local contacts for Just Serve are Bus and Lana Scharmann who can be reached at 427-9678. They said there are currently 23 projects listed locally, including opportunities to serve at the Museum, the Life Center, CareNet, and the Cantaloupe Festival.
The Community Partner meetings are held quarterly and the next meeting is scheduled for October 14, from 11 o’clock a.m. to 1 o’clock p.m.
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