This morning, employees of the UF Health Leesburg Hospital Foundation donated 25 scrubs to Leesburg High School students.

Students donned the scrubs and posed in a photograph alongside Erica Labud, president of the UF Health Leesburg Hospital Foundation, Michael Randolph, principal of Leesburg High School, and entrepreneur Dave van de Velde,.

Each of the scrubs is embroidered with the words: “UF Lunar Hospital.”

UF Lunar Hospital is one of numerous buildings that students in Leesburg schools created while designing a virtual City of Leesburg on the moon. The project was spearheaded by Dave, a local Rotarian who wanted to keep kids academically engaged while schools were closed during the height of the coronavirus.

Their work will be stored on a micro SD card and placed aboard a rocket that will land on the moon. The micro SD card will have a permanent home on the northeastern part of the moon known as the Lacus Mortis region.

In their virtual city, students named the high school after Jennifer E. Jones, who will become the Rotary International’s president in 2022-2033. She is the first female to hold that position in the organization’s 115-year history. The high school will be located on Michael Randolph Road, named after the LHS principal.

“It’s fun to see how students think about the moon and what can be achieved in outer space,” Dave says.