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Tech’s ESTAR Sanos program offers health resources to local Hispanic community
Members of the ESTAR Sanos team. From left: Luisa Groundland, event volunteer; school
of nursing graduate assistants Trevor Eason, Taylor Blanton, and Tai Hintz; Professor
Melissa Geist, Lab Coordinator Cary Cass; students - Liezl Laurel, Camila Canalejo
Medina, and Esmeralda Francisco-Moreno; and Associate Professor Mark Groundland.
Students in Tennessee Tech University’s Whitson-Hester School of Nursing provide health
resources and outreach to Hispanic communities in the Upper Cumberland through an
initiative known as ESTAR Sanos, which translates as “to be healthy.”
Started in 2020 with an award from the Rebecca Tolbert Faculty Research Program at
Tech, ESTAR Sanos works to provide education, support, training, awareness and resources
(ESTAR) to underserved populations across the region.
“A major motivator for the initiative was COVID vaccine hesitancy experienced by the
rural and Hispanic communities,” explained Melissa Geist, professor of nursing and
a practicing pediatric and family nurse practitioner. “The opportunity to provide
necessary services, give children and families positive experiences and introduce
nursing students to real-world practice is invaluable to us all.”
Recently, ESTAR Sanos joined the Cookeville Regional Medical Center Foundation’s family
engagement night at Jere Whitson Elementary School, where roughly 350 parents and
children gathered for an evening of fun health education activities.
This free event connected families at Jere Whitson Elementary to health resources
in the region. Joining the ESTAR Sanos team were local partners including the Upper
Cumberland Development District and the Putnam County Health Department.
“As a member of ESTAR, I have been able to share my knowledge and interest in health
and illness prevention with the community,” said Esmeralda Francisco-Moreno, a junior
in the nursing program. “I have met so many individuals through working with this
team and have gained great peers.”
ESTAR Sanos is spearheaded by Geist, who has a long history of developing, implementing
and mentoring programming and health-education outlets. Additional members of the
participating faculty include Cary Cass, registered nurse and School of Nursing lab
coordinator, and associate professor Mark Groundland from the foreign languages department.
Cass, who spent several years in El Salvador as a Peace Corps Volunteer, is herself
a Tech alum who studied Spanish and French, in addition to her nursing studies. Groundland
has taught Spanish to undergraduate students in the U.S. for 30 years. The courses
he offers include Spanish for Health Services and Introduction to Spanish Translation,
among others.
For more information about the ESTAR Sanos outreach program, visit www.tntech.edu/nursing/estar or email behealthy@tntech.edu.
