Harsh weather conditions has forced organizers to postpone a community health survey scheduled for this weekend to Feb. 26-27.

The survey will be conducted by volunteers with Hands On Newton and Oxford College for the Emory Urban Health Program.

The Community Health survey will gain public opinions, which are needed as part of a planning grant awarded to Newton County by the Emory Urban Health Program. This grant is designed to assist Newton County and 10 other Georgia counties in assessing the possibility of bringing a school-based health clinic to at least one local school. Hands On Newton invites anyone interested in a day of service for MLK Day to volunteer as a surveyor for this project.

Hands On will enlist 40 volunteers to go out into the community to survey families about health issues. At least 40 volunteers from Oxford at Emory will be teaming up in this county-wide effort. The survey data gathered will be used to possibly bring more children’s health care options to Newton County. The surveys take about three minutes to complete, and no volunteer will be working alone.

For more information, contact Hands On Newton at (770) 330-7405 or handsonnewton@yahoo.com.

There are 2,000 school health clinics in the nation with 245 in Florida, 206 in New York and 160 in California. Georgia is a distant last in the nation, with only two school health clinics in the state. More than 300,000 of the states’ children are uninsured with limited access to routine healthcare.

The grant for Newton County is one of 11 granted in Georgia, according to information from Dr. Veda Johnson, assistant professor of pediatrics in the Emory School of Medicine. She is director of the Urban Health Program in the Department of Pediatrics at Emory University School of Medicine.

The grants are being funded by a $3-million gift from The Zeist Foundation aimed to help improve outcomes for at-risk children in metro Atlanta and throughout the state over the next five years.

Newton County was granted these funds based on the needs of its citizens and the high degree of collaboration among the grant partners. This grant is essentially a feasibility study to determine how the community might create and support a health clinic within one or more schools, which would provide routine healthcare for children.

Local partners include the Newton County School System, Newton County Partnership and Hands On Newton volunteers, students from Oxford College, the Newton County Health Department, and representatives from community and faith-based organizations.