During a recent tea for retired nurses of the St. Luke's Hospital-Miners Campus, the Nurse Family Partnership of Schuylkill County was honored as a community nursing program that helps to strengthen society.

Nurse Family Partnership is a nonprofit organization that has registered nurses pay home visits to low-income, first-time mothers from the beginning of their pregnancy until the baby turns 2 years old.This evidence-based program has proved to be effective at guiding these families toward better pregnancy outcomes, healthy child development and economic self-sufficiency for the family.The nurses at St. Luke's raised $1,088 with basket raffles and also collected donations of many baby items to donate to the program.Barb Still, the nurse supervisor of the Nurse Family Partnership of Schuylkill County, said she was overwhelmed and humbled by the generous money and gifts that the nurses at St. Luke's donated."St Luke's is a pillar in our community, and we are thankful for their continual support of nurses," Still said.If you know someone who is pregnant for the first time and would benefit from Nurse Family Partnership, call 570-628-2611 for more information.