Community News

The Boca Raton Tribune C O M M U N I T Y

Boc a Teen Twins Collec t 7,600 Pounds of Cereal for Boc a Helping Hands Dive Into “Oceans of Possibilities ” D uring the Boynton Librar y ’s S ummer Reading Program

Boca Helping Hands has received more than 7,600 pounds of cereal this year, from collection drives organized by Cereal4All, a nonprofit organization that was started by 14-year-old twin brothers Jett and Luke Justin, Boca Raton residents who attend Don Estridge Middle School. This donation means that Boca Helping Hands will be able to provide clients with about 72,000 bowls of cereal.

The annual drive launched on March 7 to celebrate National Cereal Day and concluded in May. A record number of 18 schools and organizations participated this year, including Calusa Elementary School, J. C. Mitchell Elementar y School, Florida Atlantic University’s Community Service Club, Morikami Park Elementary School, St. Joan o f A r c C a t h o l i c School, Plastridge Insurance, West Boca High School, and W hispering Pines Elementary School.

Breakfast food is one of the least donated items to food banks across the country. Unfortunately, that means not all families have daily access to breakfast in their homes. Like most kids, Jett and Luke consider cereal to be one of their favorite foods.

“We want to live in a world where every kid and family has daily access to breakfast food in their home,” Luke Justin said. “We want to be part of the fight against food insecurity.”

Having volunteered at Boca Helping Hands with their parents, Jett and Luke organized their first cereal drive for BHH in 2016 at Calusa Elementary School when they were just eight years old. The brothers have since expanded the program, now called Cereal4All, to more schools in the area, including Florida Atlantic University. “Cereal is about breakfast, but it’s also about happiness,” Jett Justin said. “We couldn’t stop thinking about the families in our community who couldn’t fill their bowls, and we wanted to do something about it.” The entire Justin family continues to volunteer at BHH. “It was always important to my wife and me to instill

The annual drive the idea of thinking launched on March 7 about others and helping the comto celebrate National munity,” said Er-

Cereal Day and ic Justin, the twins’ father. “The boys concluded in May. bonded with Boca Helping Hands and their mission because it speaks to their hearts. We realized that Boca Helping Hands is a hidden jewel in the community.” In 2019, the twins received six additional pallets of cereal from General Mills after persistently writing to the company for three years. General Mills still supports Cereal4All and has sent the boys t-shirts to give to students who donate cereal boxes. For additional information about ongoing food drives, visit BocaHelpingHands. org/FoodDrives.

The Boynton Beach City Library’s Summer Reading initiative, “Oceans of Possibilities,” begins on Saturday, June 4 with a KickOff Party from 10 am -2 pm at Centennial Park (120 E. Ocean Ave.). Children (ages 5-12) and teenagers can register for the Summer Reading Program, play themed activities, make crafts, and receive a free icy treat.

Everyone who registers for the Summer Reading Program and tracks the books they read from June 4 through August 4 will be entered to win prizes, including a bodyboard or bluetooth speaker for teens and a squid kite or Fortnite-themed Water Blaster for youth.

The Summer Reading Program is sponsored by Friends of the Boynton Beach City Library. Thanks to their support, programs such as Ceramic Sea Creature Painting, Tie Dye Bandanas, Teen Yoga, and OtakuFest will occur throughout the summer to keep children and young adults engaged and enthused about learning. The times and dates of programming are as follows: • Youth Programs: Thursdays, 3:30 pm – 4:30 pm • Teen Programs: Tuesdays (alternating), 4:00 pm – 6:00 pm • Outdoor Stor ytime: Wednesdays, 10:00 am – 10:30 am • Teen Yoga: Tuesdays (alternating), 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm

Participants can stop by the Youth Services Library, located on the first floor of City Hall at 100 E. Ocean Ave., now through August 6 at 5 pm to sign up and pick up a book log. Visit the Summer Reading 2022 registration page to learn more. For ADA accommodations, call 561-742-6241 or Florida Relay 711.

Enrollment Now Open for the Fuller Ac ademy, Early Childhood Educ ation, and Afterschool Programs at Fuller Center

Designed to enable kids of all income brackets the opportunity to experience superior, personalized education, the Fuller Center, a not-for-profit organization focused on early childhood development, has space available in its private elementary school, the Fuller Academy, on the organization’s West Campus at 10130 185th Street South, Boca Raton.

The certified Choice school serves kindergarten through third grade students and features a customized curriculum that follows B.E.S.T. (Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking) standards and practices. Annual tuition is $8,500 – one of the most affordable private schools in the region – with Step Up Scholarships also available for those who qualify.

“Children of all incomes should be able to access top notch education, and the Fuller Academy provides a private school education for an affordable tuition,” said Ellyn Okrent, CEO of the Fuller Center. “Fur thermore, our preschool and afterschool programs offer a nurturing, educational, and safe place for the children of working families.”

F u l l e r A c a de m y f o l l o w s t h e Palm Beach County School District calendar, operating M o n d a y t h r o u g h Friday from 8:30 AM to 2:30 PM. Early drop-off and afterschool programs are available. Breakfast and lunch are provided, and physical education, arts and science, and field trips are included. Transportation from the East Campus to the West Campus will be available daily.

In addition, the Fuller Center’s preschool program still has spots available on both campuses in east and west Boca Raton. As the most affordable NAEYC-accredited early childhood education center in Boca Raton, it serves children from six weeks old through five years old. The Center is open from 7:30 a.m. until 5:30 p.m., Monday through Friday year-round, with the exception of national holidays, and the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day. Breakfast, lunch, and snacks are provided daily, and field trips for children four years and older are included in the cost of tuition. This program is certified for Early Head Start, Head Start, ELC, and VPK. Parent direct pay is also available. The Out-of-School-Time Program, also available on both campuses in east and west Boca Raton, is also enrolling students on both campuses. It provides a safe and enriching environment for children in kindergarten through fifth grade. The afterschool program is open Monday through Friday from 2:30 PM until 5:30 PM and from 7:30 PM to 5:30 PM on n o n - s c h o o l d a y s and during spring, summer, and win-

The Out-of-School- ter break. The pro-

Time Program, also g r a m p r ov i d e s a healthy snack, dinavailable on both ner, homework ascampuses in east and sistance, and extracurricular activities west Boca Raton, is like fishing, ballet, also enrolling students computers, music, and field trips, along on both campuses. with year-round academic support and mentoring. Afterschool transportation is available to the East Campus from JC Mitchell, Boca Elementary, Addison Mizner, and AD Henderson and to the West Campus from Whispering Pines, Coral Sunset, Morikami, Sandpiper Shores, Sunrise Park, and Waters Edge (children attending Morikami must board bus at Whispering Pines for transportation to West Campus). To learn more, please contact Mio Vazquez at mvazquez@fullercenterfl.org or at (561)-482-3006, ext. 124.

FAU Awarded $1 Million Grant to Help Prevent Injury, Death from Falls

Every second, an older person in the United States falls and injures themselves, and every 20 minutes one of them dies from the fall. More than 30 percent of adults 65 and older fall every year and 25 percent of them have moderate to severe injuries. These falls result in 3 million visits to the emergency department, 8 0 0 , 0 0 0 h o s p it a l i z a t i o n s a n d 30,000 deaths each year. The problem is especially acute in Florida where more than 3.3 million residents are over age 65.

A l t h o u g h there are comprehensive guidelines on fall prevention, most efforts at the primary care level and in emergency departments have not shown great promise preventing injury. Moreover, primary care physicians rarely perform recommended routine fall-risk assessment and fall prevention strategies.

Researchers from Florida Atlantic University’s Schmidt College of Medicine have received a $1 million grant from the Florida Medical Malpractice Joint Underwriting Association for a two-year project titled, “The Geriatric Emergency Department Fall Injury Prevention Project (The GREAT FALL).”

The randomized controlled study will investigate several emergency departmentbased prevention strategies in older patients at high risk for recurrent falls and injury. The tailored multicomponent intervention will identify effective fall prevention strategies that target limited resources to high-risk individuals who come to the emergency department to improve patient outcomes, improve safety, and reduce overall costs of health care.

“The emergency department provides an opportunity to target efforts and maximize resources to reduce the risk of fall-related injuries,” said Richard Shih, M.D., principal investigator, a professor of emergency medicine, and division director of the emergency medicine residency program, FAU Schmidt College of Medicine. “Importantly, older patients who have injured themselves after a fall and come to the emergency department have an even higher risk for recurrent falls and subsequent injuries. Therefore, targeting older individuals and their caregivers in the emergency department could provide the most beneficial return when limited resources are available to enhance safety in these individuals.”

“The GREAT FALL” builds upon two prior FAU prevention projects: “The GREAT STOP” to prevent head trauma in older adults on blood thinners; and the “STAR” program that included many different types of high-risk older patients. “The GREAT STOP” project enrolled about 6,000 head injury patients among whom the vast majority suffered their injury due to a ground level fall. The work has led to a number of important insights regarding fallrelated head injury in the older population.

Shih is leading a collaborative group of emergency medicine and geriatric medicine researchers with vast experience in this field. The team is collaborating with the Palm Beach Health Network’s D e l r ay M e d i c a l C e n t e r , w h i ch treats more than 50,000 adult patients in its emergency department a n d i n c l u d e s a busy level 1 traum a c e n t e r, t h e highest level of trauma care available. The main outcome measure of the study will determine the rate of recurrent fall requiring an emergency department visit and fall-related injury over a six-month follow-up period. Additional secondary outcomes will include types of fall-related injuries, fall-related deaths and all-cause deaths.

Study participants will be randomized to three strategies: current care; a phone-based fall-prevention strategy; and a home-visit fall prevention strategy. The phone-based strategy will include providing the patient and caregiver easy-to-read materials before they are discharged from the emergency department and a structured phone call around 14 days after discharge. Both the home-visit fall prevention strategy and phone strategy are based on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s “Stopping Elderly Accidents, Deaths & Injuries.”

“Florida is an ideal location to perform this important study as it has the highest percentage of geriatric patients in the U.S., and in particular, Palm Beach County has more than 365,000 residents age 65 and older, which makes up 24.4 percent of the county’s population,” said Julie G. Pilitsis, M.D., Ph.D., dean and vice president of medical affairs, FAU Schmidt College of Medicine. “This project will provide vital data on the best strategies to prevent falls in high-risk individuals and improve their safety as well as patient outcomes.”

Co-investigators of the study are Lisa Clayton, D.O., an associate professor of emergency medicine and chair, FAU Department of Emergency Medicine; Joseph G. Ouslander, M.D., a professor of geriatric medicine, senior advisor to the dean, and editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society; Scott Alter, M.D., an assistant professor of emergency medicine and associate research director of FAU’s emergency medicine residency program; Joshua Solano, M.D., an associate professor of emergency medicine and director of quality improvement and patient safety, FAU’s emergency medicine residency program; and Patrick Hughes, D.O., an associate professor of emergency medicine and assistant program director, FAU’s emergency medicine residency program.