VP Rotary experiences pediatric care for head, heart, hands, and health

The Ville Platte Rotary Club, during its latest round of meetings before Thanksgiving, welcomed home a native pediatrician and learned from parish 4-H students about the value of joining the organization.
At last week’s meeting, the club heard from Dr. Ellis Landreneau, who along with his wife and physician’s assistant Christina, opened Evangeline Pediatrics.
In his introduction of the couple, Chief Executive Officer of Mercy Regional Medical Center and Rotarian Calvin Green expressed, “Ellis is local, and I think it would be fair to say at heart he is still a Sacred Heart Trojan. He was educated through the LSU educational system, but the most important thing is he wanted to come back home.”
“He and Christina chose to come back here for a reason,” Green continued, “and, I think in the long run, this community, this medical community, and this hospital will benefit from it.”
Dr. Landreneau then stated he and his wife “chose to come back to Ville Platte because we care about the kids in this community, and we care about the families in this community.”
He added, “When you invest in kids, you make an investment in the future of the community.”
The Landreneaus are currently seeing clients in a temporary location on Tom Drive in Ville Platte next to the Wellness Center. “We see kids from birth all the way to age 18 or 20 depending on what their needs are,” said Dr. Landreneau. “We really want to be a medical home for kids for all vaccinations and full healthcare especially those who have special needs and need coordination of care.”
Evangeline Pediatrics will soon move into a new location. As Dr. Landreneau said, the new location will be “on Main Street near Sacred Heart just past the snowball stand, and we’re going to be moving in there hopefully by the first of the year.”
He concluded, “We’re excited to be back, and we really appreciate the opportunity.”
At this week’s meeting, the Rotarians heard from Evangeline Parish Assistant Extension Agent Kim Deville and Sam Gil from Sacred Heart 4-H and Jose Deshotel from St. Ed’s 4-H.
“I think every kid should be in 4-H because of all the opportunities they have parishwide, districtwide, and statewide,” said Deville. “They are really able to grow as a person in 4-H. I really have a lot of pride in the fact they learn how to be a good public speaker, a good leader, and a good citizen of their community and their state.”
After Deville’s introductory statements, Deshotel led off the program with an introduction of what 4-H is. “Evangeline 4-H serves to instill good character, hard work, and self motivation in all its members,” he said. “As a young 4-H member, there are many opportunities to gain valuable life skills through events held throughout the parish all year long. It is through these events that children of all ages are able to come together to learn through service and share their experiences through the parish.”
Gil then chronicled the different 4-H opportunities for Evangeline Parish students beginning in the third grade. The opportunities climax with being able to serve on state boards which allow the students to run different camps such as the Louisiana Outdoor Science and Technology Camp or LOST Camp.
As Deshotel explained, “I volunteered to be one of the camp counselors at LOST Camp this year, and we led seven different tracks all about science and technology. We did different experiments, and some of which included teaching kids how to use a GPS. We extracted DNA from different strawberries, and we made something called elephant toothpaste with soap. We shot it up out of a Coke bottle.”
Gil concluded the presentation with, “We thoroughly enjoy networking with other 4-Hers and being a leader. Because 4-H offers so much to today’s youth, we feel prepared for life outside of our chapters. 4-H is on as good as what you put into it, and Evangeline Parish makes the best better.”