Nurses’ Fund a Sweet Pill for Poor Students

For a school nurse, finding children with health problems is only part of the job.

“If you have a mouthful of abscesses and cavities, the children can’t eat and they can’t concentrate in the classroom,” said Leslie Orth, a retired school nurse who chairs the Kathryn L. Kurka Children’s Health Fund.

But finding the problem did not always mean solving it, at least not until the Kurka fund was started by a former school nurse supervisor for the Los Angeles Unified School District. The fund pays for eye exams and dental work for children too poor even to afford the fees at low-cost clinics.

“For 35 years it was kind of a one-person operation,” said Kathryn Kurka, the fund’s founder who retired from the school district in 1985. Since 1955, Kurka had made a few attempts to create the fund while working as a supervisor in different areas of the district. But her efforts usually would fall apart as she shifted from job to job.

Kurka was finally able to establish the fund permanently when she became school nurse supervisor for the entire district in 1979. “When I left, I said, ‘Don’t let this fund die,’ ” recalled Kurka, who lives in Los Angeles and is still a volunteer for the fund.

To make sure it didn’t, other volunteers formed a board of directors, established it as a nonprofit group in 1986 and named it in honor of Kurka, who declined to be its leader.

Orth, a grandmother who lives in West Hills and retired as a school nurse in 1993, replaced Kurka as the chairwoman. Orth spent 33 years with the district, the first 17 years and the last eight in Valley schools. The spirit of the fund reminds her of the neighbors she had growing up in Northern California during the Depression.

“We had a lot of kind neighbors who did little things for us because we were a big family,” said Orth, whose family had eight children and lived on a modest income.

By staying in contact with children through campus visits for formal events, Orth said she’s reminded of why she does it.

“Have you ever worked with little kids that don’t have anything and don’t have anyone?” Orth asked. “That’s why you do it.”

For Kurka, it all started because of one boy. In 1955, during a visit to a school, the nurse asked the boy to come to the office because he wasn’t eating the lunches the PTA provided.

“His mouth was so bad, it was terrible,” Kurka recalled. “It was filled with cavities, and he was sitting in his classroom silently and nobody knew about it.”

The boy was in too much pain to eat, much less learn anything, they found. That night, Kurka started raising money and the first incarnation of the fund was born. It would take five tries before the fund became permanent.

The first year the fund was incorporated as a nonprofit, 120 children were helped. Last year that number climbed to 635. No student in need is turned down, even those from outside the LAUSD, Orth said.

“Each year there seems to be more of a need for the fund,” Orth said. The fund has 500 volunteers, many of whom are retired school nurses.

This year, the Kathryn L. Kurka Children’s Health Fund won a Community Partnership Award from the Los Angeles Times Valley Edition. Donations may be sent to 22122 Londelius St., West Hills 91304. Last year’s donations totaled $64,000.

“We’re just a little piece of helping children, but we try to do it good,” Orth said.

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