VANCOUVER, Wash. — Along with treating the coronavirus, health care workers have the challenge of caring for their families.
But some are finding much-needed support from the Evergreen School District.
When the world around us stopped because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Galina Nisley’s world kept going.
“I’m an acute care speech language pathologist,” she said.
Nisley lives in Portland and commutes to work at Legacy Salmon Creek Medical Center in Vancouver.
Long story short, she always has patients she needs to care for, and like many healthcare workers she can’t stop going to work.
Both Nisley and her husband have jobs and are parents to their son, 9-year-old Daniel.
“Our primary concern was 'Gosh with school closed, what are we going to do?'” said Nisley.
Enter, Camp Evergreen.
“Our health care professionals are certainly busy and they’ll need that childcare. We’ll continue as long as school is not in session,” said Gail Spolar, with the Evergreen School District.
“To be able to find a program like this where we know our child is safe and well taken care of and gets to be around other children in a really safe way is just fantastic,” Nisley said.
The Evergreen School District started Camp Evergreen on March 24 at Crestline Elementary School. It’s paid for through state money already meant for education and it has staff from across the district.
“We have the ability to do social distancing from the moment they hit the front door,” said Spolar.
Monday through Friday, from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m., parents who have jobs as first responders or healthcare workers can drop their kids off for free childcare.
“At any given time we have 35-45 students rotating through,” Spolar explained.
Even kids from outside the district can attend. They can work on their own distance-learning assignments or participate in other activities throughout the day. In between, there’s lots of handwashing and sanitizing.
“We have a photo on our Facebook page where they’re lining up to go to lunch and you see there’s dots along the line and they’re staying six feet apart,” said Spolar.
Kids get breakfast if they’re hungry, lunch, and even dinner if they need it. Community partners like Firehouse Subs, Jimmy Johns, Seize the Bagel, Einstein Bagels, Costco, and Home Depot have pitched in to help.
“For the community outside of the school to step up in that way, has been neat to see and just very much appreciated,” said Nisley.
Nisley is just one of a number of parents who work in the medical field who are grateful for the help.
“It has been such a gift for our mental health, for our child’s, to be able to have some kind of new normal,” Nisley said.
Camp Evergreen accepts kids from 30 months old to 12 years old.
But parents can’t just drop their kids off. They’ve got to register first through the Camp Evergreen website.