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(HOWARD, SD) – Throughout November, students at Howard Elementary School collected their coins for a worthy cause. Recently, they gifted “Coins for Cancer” to the Horizon Health Foundation for the purchase of necessary supplies for local Miner County patients of Horizon Health Care who are fighting cancer.
Every month, the Howard Elementary School Student Council chooses a project to focus their efforts on. From November 15-20, they ran a campaign encouraging students to bring in their extra coins to help the community. As student advisors of the Student Council during the month of November, Sally Barnhart, paraprofessional, and Stacy Wingen, junior kindergarten teacher, assisted the students in their campaign.
“With Thanksgiving during November, we discussed ways to be thankful and to give back to the community,” said Barnhart. “As a previous employee of Rusty’s, I remembered that Horizon had given out the gift certificates for the local cancer patients and thought this would be a good way for the kids to contribute.”
The “Coins for Cancer” donation consisted of $319.17, all of which will be added to Horizon Health Foundation’s Cancer Care fund, which helps local cancer patients by providing gas cards, grocery gift certificates and cancer screenings.
“This is remarkable!” said Tracy Pardy, Executive Director of the Horizon Health Foundation, “We are so grateful to the Student Council leadership and the Howard Elementary students for all their hard work and their donations to help cancer patients of Horizon Health Care in Miner county.”
The Horizon Health Foundation was established in 2016 to ensure rural health care access to those in need and provide funding for Horizon Health Care. Horizon Health Foundation, a tax-exempt, non-profit corporation, seeks through responsible activities to encourage and derive sustaining gift support from current and former patients and interested friends, including corporate entities. The Horizon Health Foundation, operating in coordination with Horizon Health Care, is the duly designated fundraising arm for Horizon Health Care. In the broadest sense, the purpose of the Foundation is to create an awareness of the financial needs of Horizon Health Care, which are not provided by patient charges and to systematically implement plans by which dollar needs can be met.
About Horizon Health Care
For over 40 years, Horizon Health Care has been providing personalized, affordable, high-quality medical, dental and behavioral health care through a rural, community-based network in South Dakota. Horizon is a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) that serves the medical, dental and mental health care needs of South Dakotans in rural, medically underserved areas through 110,000 patient visits annually in 32 community health centers in: Aberdeen, Alcester, Bison, Bryant, De Smet, Eagle Butte, Elk Point, Faith, Fort Thompson, Howard, Huron, Isabel, La Plant, Lake Preston, Martin, McIntosh, Mission, Plankinton, Wessington Springs, White River, Woonsocket, and Yankton. For more information please visit www.horizonhealthcare.org.