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An almost-14-year-old program has provided free immunizations to more than 6,000 children in Little Rock since its inception.

In October 1993, St. Vincent Health System began providing free immunizations for children at a daycare. “One sister at the hospital came up with the idea,” said Renia White, coordinator of Project Guardian Angel. “She was concerned, when providing physicals, how many children were behind in their immunizations.”
Since 1993, Project Guardian Angel has expanded to include about 50 actively participating daycares in lower socio-economic areas of Little Rock, said Ginny McMurray, a grant writer for St. Vincent Foundation, the formal fundraising arm of St. Vincent Health System.

The process of immunizing the children begins with White, a registered nurse. She goes to the daycares and examines the shot records of children enrolled. Once she has determined which children need to be immunized, she works with the daycare director to ensure that the parents get a letter and information about Project Guardian Angel and their child’s immunization needs. A parent signs a consent form for the child to receive the appropriate shots or then provides a copy of an updated shot record from the child’s doctor.

“At that point, we agree on a date, and I go out and vaccinate the child on-site,” White said. Then, White provides a copy of the updated record to the parent and the daycare. Project Guardian Angel also enters the updated shot information into the health department’s registry, so that a child already has updated records when he or she gets ready to enter school.

The Arkansas Department of Health provides the serum for the shots, as well as grant money to the foundation to cover a portion of White’s salary. “St. Vincent’s foundation raises additional money to cover the remainder of the nurse’s salary and other expenses of the program,” McMurray said.

In 2006, Project Guardian Angel immunized 715 children but monitored 2,595 on an ongoing basis, McMurray said. “We monitor 2,500, 2,600 children a year because we monitor (the records of) all the ones in the (participating) daycare centers,” she said. McMurray points to an “impressive” statistic: From 1993 through the end of 2006, Project Guardian Angel had immunized 6,164 children, administered 12,913 doses of vaccine and maintained the shot records of 36,577 children.

McMurray said the program is currently at capacity and unable to increase its yearly numbers of vaccinations.

Working with Project Guardian Angel provides “an excellent reward,” said White. “We just don’t have enough help to be able to provide for more daycares.”
A program goal, McMurray said, is to have as many fully compliant daycare centers as possible, meaning all of a center’s children would be immunized.
Project Guardian Angel provides all the “standard” immunizations, McMurray said — including chicken pox, diphtheria, hepatitis B, measles, mumps, rubella, tetanus and polio. The state requires such immunizations of all children in full-time daycare, she said, as well as when they enter public school.

The program employs just one full-time nurse, White, although a part-time volunteer performs a lot of the necessary data entry, McMurray said.

Project Guardian Angel also participates in an annual health fair at St. Vincent Health Clinic East, in east Little Rock.

Project Guardian Angel “has longevity,” McMurray said, “and it really is helping parents; a lot may work at jobs where they don’t get time off” to take a healthy child to a doctor for immunization shots.


August 2007

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