{"id":29413,"date":"2024-02-02T22:51:41","date_gmt":"2024-02-03T05:51:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/save-the-children-brings-star-power-in-surprise-visit-to-san-juan-county\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T00:55:56","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T06:55:56","slug":"save-the-children-brings-star-power-in-surprise-visit-to-san-juan-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/save-the-children-brings-star-power-in-surprise-visit-to-san-juan-county\/","title":{"rendered":"Save the Children brings star power in surprise visit to San Juan County"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Actress
Actress Jennifer Garner, a Save the Children leader and trustee team member, stands with Central Primary School students on Jan. 31. (Courtesy of Patricia Marquez)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

National representatives of Save the Children, including actor Jennifer Garner, made a surprise appearance in Bloomfield Wednesday, meeting with school leaders and Bidii Baby Foods to help ensure that children in San Juan County are receiving support for success.<\/p>\n

Save the Children<\/a> began in 1919 after founder Eglantyne Jebb saw the effects that World War I had on children. Today, it continues to protect children from harm and ensure their access to education and a healthy life.<\/p>\n

Save the Children first visited students and leaders at Central Primary School. Board member Garner read to students, and the organization\u2019s president, Mark Kennedy Shriver met with leadership about the programming.<\/p>\n

\u201cFour sites in Bloomfield have Save the Children classrooms that provide intention though a specially designed curriculum,\u201d Patricia Marquez, federal programs director, said in an email.<\/p>\n

\"From
From left, Jennifer Garner, Leighlynn Yazzie and Mark Kennedy Shriver. (Courtesy of Patricia Marquez)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Save
Save the Children visits the community mural at the east wall of Kare Drug in Bloomfield. (Courtesy of Patricia Marquez)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The team also met with Leighlynn Yazzie and her daughter, who are receiving the at-home visit aspect of the program.<\/p>\n

The home visit program is run by Verlynn Platero, Melodee Velasquez and Bethany Ray, Marquez said.<\/p>\n

In their final destination, the team visited the mural at the east wall of Bloomfield\u2019s Kare Drug, which was painted in the summer of 2023 by local artist Luke Paul to bring in community support.<\/p>\n

Bloomfield Superintendent Kim Mizell and Bloomfield Schools homeless liaison Selece Gathings joined Marquez in a community meeting at Ojo Amarillo Elementary School.<\/p>\n

The national team alongside Central Consolidated Superintendent Steve Carlson spoke about the resources needed in the school districts.<\/p>\n

Bidii Baby Foods, a Shiprock-based sustainable food company, was in attendance as well.<\/p>\n

Mary Ben, co-founder of Bidii Baby Foods, said in 2023 the farm was the recipient of Save the Children\u2019s Rural Child Hunger Research Grant.<\/p>\n

This grant would give them $100,000 to put toward operating support and the farmers who assist them. Save the Children has also provided support in donations and sending their team to help on the farm.<\/p>\n

Bidii Baby Foods produces organic, locally grown baby food that might not be financially accessible to rural families. Save the Children can offset those costs, Ben said.<\/p>\n

Ben was surprised to hear that Garner, a Save the Children board member, knew about their baby food products.<\/p>\n

\u201cJennifer Garner also has her own baby food company called Once Upon a Farm, so it was just kind of inspirational for us to meet someone who\u2019s created a baby food brand that has similar values to ours,\u201d she said. \u201cIt needs to be locally grown and support farmers, be organic and be the best quality nutrients for children.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jerrod Noble, Central Consolidated public relations, said the district was grateful for the opportunity to partner with Save the Children and their support in helping achieve the mission of providing the best possible education for students.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was truly a wonderful experience focusing on children and having the dignitaries made our work so much more meaningful,\u201d Marquez said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jennifer Garner and Mark Kennedy Shriver make appearances in Bloomfield<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29414,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1240,1222,155,799,28,1241],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-29413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-aztec","tag-bloomfield","tag-education","tag-farmington","tag-headlines","tag-kirtland"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29413"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29413\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80741,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29413\/revisions\/80741"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29413"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=29413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}