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By JOYANNA LOVE/ Managing Editor

Chilton County Schools nurses will have tools to keep students and themselves safe in light of COVID-19 precautions thanks to a donation by Clanton Pediatric Associates.

The company reached out to Chrysta Russell, the lead nurse for the school system, about what items the school system would need when school starts on Sept. 8.

“We had been given a grant to use in the community being a rural health clinic and this was a project that … we knew we wanted to take on,” Janet Wheat of Clanton Pediatric Associates said. “Chrysta had given us a wish list.”

However, the school nurses were not expecting all of the items on it to be a part of the donation.

Rosalyn Driver, Chilton County High School nurse, said the donation will provide supplies, including gloves, masks, sanitizer dispensers, etc. to each of the 15 campuses.

One unique piece of equipment will meet a specific need of having water in each nurse’s room.

“When she had suggested portable handwashing stations, I thought that was amazing,” Wheat said.

Driver explained that since many of the rooms the nurses are working out of were not initially designed as a nurse’s station, there is no running water.

“We are basically having to retro fit nurse’s offices in buildings that were built decades ago,” Driver said.

To address this need, so that nurses can wash their hands and not have to rely solely on sanitizer a portable sink option has been donated for each room that needs one.

“Soap and water is best,” Driver said.

The portable sink has a tank that is filled with water that comes out of the faucet when someone presses the foot pedal.