ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 Families received free school supplies and health screenings, including EKGs for student athletes, at the 30th annual Back to School Care Fair in St. Petersburg.<\/p>\n
This comes as a new state law requires high school athletes to complete the heart screening before participating in athletic events.<\/p>\n
Evara Health, the Junior League of St. Petersburg and St. Petersburg College, hosted the annual fair.<\/p>\n
Among the students who received care was Londynn Dunbar, a soon-to-be eighth grader at Seminole Middle School, who plays flag football.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had gotten a physical, and I got weighed, and I got my height checked and my vitals,\u201d Dunbar said.<\/p>\n
Dunbar also received her first EKG screening at Evara Health. The screening is not required for her because she is not yet in high school, but her mother, Jamie Ruffin, said she was glad it was offered.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt helps them with the sports, if they have heart problems,\u201d Ruffin said. \u201cSo, we can know further if she can continue playing sports or not.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dr. Nichelle Threadgill, chief medical officer at Evara Health, said EKG screenings can help identify heart conditions that are often hidden. She said the organization wants to make sure the new requirement does not become a barrier for student athletes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to make sure that we\u2019re available so that anyone who wants to participate in sports and everyone who\u2019s going back to school can do so in a healthy and safe way,\u201d Threadgill said.<\/p>\n
In addition to medical screenings, families received free school supplies. The Junior League of St. Petersburg helped distribute more than 1,300 backpacks and 400 books.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe times have changed, things are expensive, life is expensive,\u201d said Jaimie Kane, president of the Junior League of St. Petersburg. \u201cSo if we can help out in some way, shape or form, we are honored and privileged to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Dunbar, completing her physical, dental exam, and EKG screening brought her one step closer to returning to the field.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt first I was nervous because I didn\u2019t know what it was, and then once we got started doing the test I kind of relaxed,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Organizers said the Back to School Care Fair has distributed more than 30,000 backpacks since 1997. Evara Health has completed more than 8,000 health screenings through the event.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 Families received free school supplies and health screenings, including EKGs for student athletes, at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":352517,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[137530,767,274,54547,770,2200,115,596,202,204,203,199,201,200,135,278,2032,1374,835],"class_list":["post-352516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-app-back-to-school","tag-app-community","tag-app-top-stories","tag-back-to-school","tag-community-news","tag-instagram-bn9","tag-news","tag-pinellas-county","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-tampa","tag-top-stories","tag-trending-topics","tag-tyler-oneill","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=352516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/352517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}