The REACH Healthcare Foundation’s Board of Directors this week approved about $2.2 million in grants to 29 health-service projects for the region’s poor and medically underserved children and adults.
Forty percent of the funding was directed to nine core operating grants of $100,000 to safety net clinics and advocacy organizations that work to increase health services.
Brenda Sharpe, the foundation’s president and chief executive officer, said the foundation’s support for core services was influenced by continuing economic challenges that are having a negative effect on families’ ability to obtain health care.
“Job and income losses over the past year have underscored the difficulties millions of people have in obtaining and affording quality health care,” Sharpe said in a prepared statement. “Core operating grants were awarded to nonprofit organizations that have demonstrated their ability to provide essential health services to low-income and underserved individuals in our communities, and to advocate on their behalf.”
The foundation also issued a number of grants to support innovative approaches to linking children and adults with primary medical, dental and mental health care. These included grants for referral networks that help low-income and uninsured patients obtain specialty medical care; school-based efforts to connect children and youth with mental health services; and programs that focus on specific, vulnerable populations, such as homeless adults and children.
The foundation conducts two focused grant cycles annually. Nonprofit organizations can apply for Capacity Grants and Discretionary Grants throughout the year. The next grant cycle will be announced in August 2009. Organizations interested in applying for a grant can find information and eligibility criteria at www.reachhealth.org.
The REACH Healthcare Foundation was formed in 2003 from the proceeds of the sale of Health Midwest to Hospital Corporation of America. The foundation focuses its grant making in three areas: oral health, mental health and safety-net services. Since 2005, the foundation has invested $17 million in programs and initiatives that aim to improve access to quality health services for poor and underserved populations.
The grants in the latest cycle were awarded to the following organizations:
Safety net services
Duchesne Clinic, $100,000
Health Partnership Clinic of Johnson County, $100,000
Heart to Heart International, Inc., $93,320
Jaydoc Free Clinic, $100,000
Silver City Health Center, $100,000
MetroCARE of Greater Kansas City, $33,200
Riverview Health Services, Inc., $100,000
Samuel U. Rodgers Health Center, Inc., $100,000
Truman Heartland Community Foundation on behalf of Jackson County Free Health Clinic, $31,000
University of Missouri-Kansas City on behalf of Sojourner Clinic, $31,332
Mental health
The Children’s Place, $72,379
Comprehensive Mental Health Services, Inc., $73,527
Crittenton Children’s Center, $52,210
KU School of Social Welfare, $80,145
Mattie Rhodes Center, $83,643
National Alliance on Mental Illness of Greater Kansas City, $62,910
Operation Breakthrough, $54,134
ReDiscover, $68,460
reStart, Inc., $110,625
Synergy Services, Inc., $80,423
Tri-County Mental Health Services, Inc.: $67,100
Oral health
Communities in Schools of KCK/Wyandotte County, $40,000
Health Partnership Clinic of Johnson County, $41,778
Score 1 for Health, $99,000
StandUp Blue Springs, $70,840
Advocacy
Communities Creating Opportunity, $83,181
Kansas Health Consumer Coalition, $100,000
Oral Health Kansas, Inc., $100,000