“No need to fear! The Lions Club is here!”
That’s what students from the Certified Nursing Assistant program wrote on their artistically crafted thank-you poster that each student signed. In the party atmosphere, complete with refreshments, students and staff expressed their sincere appreciation to the Coppell Lions Club for their new washer and dryer.
The laundry equipment sees regular use in cleaning the hospital linens used in the hands-on training by the PSA. The old washer and dryer were on their very last leg. Although the new equipment was installed in October, the appreciation ceremony was delayed until the students’ new scrubs arrived. Decked out in these new black monogrammed articles, the students looked eager to take their learning out into the local medical facilities that partner with the academy.
"We're happy to have been a part of serving the PSA in their need for new appliances. Helping our community and especially the youth of Coppell is one of our primary goals as an organization," Coppell Lions President Fred Conger said.
The Public Service Academy (PSA) highly engages, promotes higher level thinking and offers CHS students experience in high skill, high performing careers. The PSA focuses on education and medicine with core subjects to create engaging, relevant career connections for students. The purpose of the Public Services Academy is to create experiences in preparing students for global opportunities in educational and medical careers; personalize the high school experience and provide opportunities that will make students highly marketable for college acceptance. The Certified Nursing Assistant program, is headed by Debra Johnson.
In telling the students about the many service initiatives sponsored by the Lions Club, one program struck a synergistic note. Each summer the Texas Lions Camp in Kerrville provides an extraordinary camping experience for kids with various disabilities. The key enabler for this challenging undertaking is their world-class medical facility. The possibility of being camp counselors under these unique circumstances sparked interest in several students.
The Coppell Lions Club became aware of this unusual request for support in discussions with Lindsay Ayers who is CISD’s new Director of Marketing and Business Partnerships. The Lions Club already partners with the CISD on a number of projects including vision screenings, the holiday food and toy drive, poster contests, and college scholarships. "Our support of the community is very important to us and with CISD’s new Partners in Excellence program, both CISD and the Coppell Lions expect our partnership to grow even stronger," said Lion Ed Darling, CISD Community Coordinator for the Lions.
Chartered in 1983, the Coppell Lions Club has provided support to the community in sight restoration programs, literacy, diabetes education, Christmas toy and food drives, handicapped children programs and scholarship awards to local high school seniors. Over the years, the Coppell Lions have given over $110,000 to area students to complete their college education and average in excess of 6000 man hours of community service per year.