Highland County Job and Family Services collaborated with the Highland County Health Department and the Highland County Community Action Organization to hold its third annual Back to School event Wednesday and Thursday at Southern State Community College’s Patriot Center.
The event is funded annually by TANF (Temporary Aid For Needy Families), according to Highland County Job and Family Services director Katie Adams, and provides vouchers to eligible Highland County students, aged 3-18, who are attending school during the upcoming academic year, to purchase school supplies and clothing at Walmart.
Financial eligibility requirements applied, she said, and pre-registration was required for the event.
Representatives from all three agencies were on hand to distribute information to the participants regarding the programs and services offered by them.
“We set it up kind of like a little vendor’s fair,” Adams said, “so we can showcase what services are out there for children and families in the community.”
Highland County Health Department commissioner Jared Warner, whose department Adams said, “provides logistics” to the event to help everything run smoothly, said that, “we were familiar with the idea of large groups trying to get in and receive something” and said the partnership for the event “was a perfect fit for us.”
Adams described the event as “a service for the kids and the community, and we enjoy doing it so that the kids get the school supplies and clothes that they need.”
For more information about the Highland County Health Department, call 937-393-1941 or go online to www.highlandcountyhealth.org.
To learn more about the services offered by the Highland County Community Action Organization, call 937-393-3458 or visit their website at www.hccao.org.
Highland County Job and Family Services can be reached by calling 937-393-4278 and following the prompts, or by going online to www.highlandjfs.org.
Juliane Cartaino is a stringer for The Times-Gazette
