I think it goes without saying that in order to offer a program like the Great Health Care Adventure free of charge to students and their schools, you've got to have some pretty incredible support from your community. Over the past four years the program has been supported by a variety of constituents in a variety of ways. For all of the support we receive, we are so grateful.

NDSU College of Pharmacy, Nursing, & Allied Sciences Ambassadors: Ambassadors contribute countless volunteer hours and serve as incredible mentors for the kids that we meet through this program.

Target and Walgreen's: Two of the primary grants that back this program come from the Target Corporation and the Walgreen's Corporation.

From Monday, March 18 through Wednesday, March 20 the Great Health Care Adventure puppets and I will be up to our eyeballs in kindergartners! We will be spending time with 16 sections of kindergarten at the Osgood Kindergarten Center here in the local community. We can't wait! The children we meet are going to learn about careers in pharmacy, nursing, medical lab science, radiologic sciences and respiratory care.

On Wednesday, January 23 nine second graders at Madison Elementary participated in The Great Health Care Adventure White Coat Ceremony. In past years we've referred to this event as a graduation ceremony, but in keeping with the traditions that our professional students honor at the college level, I thought it would be great for our second grade friends to learn about and experience a new type of ceremony that is most commonly found in institutions that train health professionals.

The Great Health Care Adventure has gotten off to a great start this fall. This week, especially, has been FULL of adventures! On Wednesday morning 20 fourth graders from Jeannette Myhre Elementary School in Bismarck, ND visited campus. They had a full day that included a campus tour, lunch in the dining center, and visits to three departments: Engineering, Entomology (bugs!), and the College of Pharmacy, Nursing, and Allied Sciences.

The Great Health Care Adventure is starting out with a bang in 2012. Early in the school year I sent information about the program to all k-12 schools in North Dakota. The response has been great! I was hoping for a good response from Western North Dakota, as my travels up until this point haven't taken me very far in that direction.

The more I work with kids, the more I realize that health care education isn't only an important way to spread the word about health careers or healthy living, it is an important way to explain things to kids that their friends or family members are going through that they may not understand. Understanding brings empathy and a sense of normalcy, which are both important.

I don't always stop to think about the number of students that I interact with through this program. Today I am working on a grant application and that specific information came up in the application questions. This academic year I have visited 517 kids in 26 pre-k through 12th grade classrooms in the state of North Dakota. In the three years the Great Health Care Adventure has existed over 1,500 kids have participated in our programs! WOW! What a fun thing to think about.

From Monday, June 18 to Thursday, June 21 the halls of Sudro Hall will be filled with 4-6th grade students! Camp Health Care is part of a STEM (Science, technology, engineering and math) initiative that teaches elementary school students how you can incorporate STEM areas into some pretty cool fields. At Camp Health Care students learn all about pharmacy, nursing, allied sciences majors and pharmaceutical sciences research.

I'm looking at my calendar and shaking my head. June 11th? Where has the time gone? The spring semester here at NDSU absolutely flew by. The Great Health Care Adventure at the campus child care center February-April was so much fun. I'm positive that my student ambassadors and I learned as much from the children there as they did from us.

The last week of April was full of adventures! I spent two days at Hankinson High School and Elementary School.

Five students (three nursing and two pharmacy) and I made our way across campus for our second visit to the child care center on Tuesday. Our theme for the visit was "Germs." We talked about how tiny germs are and how you can't really see them on your hands, toys, friends, etc. We also talked about how when you look at germs using special tools they are colorful and have interesting shapes.

We split the class into two groups.
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