Healthy Learners highlights mission and success stories in latest newsletter

Friday, November 03, 2023

Tags: Healthy Learners , Outreach

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Healthy Learners provides students with access to essential medical, dental and vision care so that they have the opportunity to reach their full potential. Check out the latest newsletter from Healthy Learners to discover the heart of its mission, a student’s origin story to become a superhero, and more heartwarming stories.

Below is a story about Eli and how Healthy Learners helped him get the vision and dental care he needed to succeed in school. Read the full newsletter here.

Unleashing a Passion...

When you talk with Eli, chances are he'll ask you which is cooler, Batman or Superman. Eli is a quiet high school senior, passionate about art and music. He plays clarinet in the high school marching band, loves discussing the artistic styles and story elements of Marvel and DC comics, and is truly a superhero himself. Eli has battled the villains of vision loss and dental pain all throughout his high school years, yet he still triumphed.

When he participated in a vision and dental screening with Healthy Learners this summer, it was discovered he had 20/500 vision, meaning Eli saw something 20 feet away with the same clarity that a person with 20/20 saw 500 feet away – and he had never owned a pair of glasses.

He also had 11 cavities, 5 of which were very serious and needed root canals. Eli has had many sidekicks on his journey: his mom loves him deeply and is passionate about Eli's educational success. She works in the school district. He also has had some amazing teachers who helped him along the way. However, with Eli being accepted at SC State University starting in 2024, he needed help confronting these villains his community struggled to address alone – All for his solo mission of succeeding in college.

Just like when Captain America and Iron Man teamed up, Healthy Learners joined Eli’s team to ensure he
received corrective vision, coordinated care of his oral health, and radioed into Eli's mom to ensure Eli could
fly into the sunset, his villains conquered for good. Eli is now ready to start his own origin story. He plans on getting a degree in early childhood education and becoming a teacher – unleashing a passion to serve students, inspire hope, and transform futures.

Healthy Learners is a ministry of the Sisters of Charity Health System.