As they approach the end of their grant periods, these Local Initiative Funding Partners projects offer a snapshot of their accomplishments and future plans. Read their one-page reports and their dramatic stories.

All reports are in pdf format requiring Adobe Reader, a free download available here.

Ball State University in Muncie, IN
Operation Wellness
Operation Wellness focuses on increasing the number of children, adolescents, and adults who engage in leisure-time physical activity, consume at least five daily servings of fruit and vegetables, and eat meals and snacks that contribute to good health. These objectives are achieved through a plethora of after-school activities, day/evening classes for adults, worksite programs, and media efforts. (Graduate Report)

The sun set slowly over the fields of golden wheat in this small, rural midwestern community. Dinners were taken out from ovens across the county and placed on tables laden with mashed potatoes, bread, butter, pickles, corn, roast beef, cherry pie, milk, lemonade, and soda. Another day in this farming community is nearly done. (Graduate Story)

Cape Cod Free Clinic in Falmouth, Inc. in Falmouth, MA
Community Care for Depression
Four primary care health centers collaborate to provide depression screening and care for the uninsured and for the emerging immigrant population on Cape Cod, MA. These clinics integrate primary and mental health care and addiction services. The project is developing a volunteer network of psychologists and social workers including bilingual professionals to serve Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking newcomers.
(Graduate Report)

On the many-times-folded, much worried over paper was a drawing. Though somewhat crudely rendered, it had a childlike elegance and an undeniable patina of truth. It contained some elements of the flashbacks he’d been suffering: angry violent faces and other frightening images that surrounded and penned in Wilfredo’s self portrait. But to the left of the more disturbing images was a dominant one of Wendy with a reassuring smile and a halo around her head. (Graduate Story)

Cascade AIDS Project in Portland, OR
Kids Connection
Kids' Connection establishes new comprehensive services for children and youth ages 0-18, whose parent or primary caretaker is HIV-positive. Programs include support groups, guardianship planning and referrals to HIV-sensitive and knowledgeable community services. (Graduate Report)

Cincinnati Health Network, Inc. in Cincinnati, OH
Cincinnati Respite Center for Homeless Individuals
The Center for Respite Care is a 15-bed 24-hour facility providing medical and nursing care to sick homeless people to promote effective healing. Patients receive quality, holistic medical care and assistance in breaking the cycle of homelessness. (Graduate Report)

As I passed out the 10:00 PM medication to Kevin last night, I marveled at the beauty of his fingers as he placed them around the Dixie cup. Just a few short months ago those same hands were raw, bloody, and suffering from severe frostbite. When Kevin first came to the Center for Respite Care last March, his right index finger had been partially amputated and seven others were wrapped in white gauze. Standing before me tonight is a new person -- healed from the inside out. (Graduate Story)

Community Health Center of Central Wyoming in Casper, WY
Children's Advocacy Project
The Children's Advocacy Project (CAP) is a team of committed agencies and individual professionals who work together to provide coordinated forensic and comprehensive services for alleged victims of child maltreatment and children who witness violence in order to minimize trauma to children, to break the cycle of abuse and to foster a more effective and efficient community response to child maltreatment. (Graduate Report)

Hailey was listening to her mother talk on the telephone ... about Grandpa and Hailey’s friend Lexi ... Hailey’s eyes welled up with tears; she became fidgety and began talking very rapidly. Hailey told her mother that she knew Lexi was telling the truth because she was there when Grandpa played naked games with them. (Graduate Story)

DeSoto Health & Wellness Center in Walls, MS
DeSoto Health & Wellness Center
The Center provides affordable, quality primary health care services to the working uninsured of DeSoto County. (Graduate Report)

On a typical day the doors of the DeSoto Health & Wellness Center open and in walks ... (Graduate Story)

Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital Foundation, Inc. in Hollywood, FL
Schools of Wellness
The Schools of Wellness Initiative works to prevent childhood obesity by teaching fourth and fifth grade students healthy habits they can use throughout their lives. Currently in 50 schools, the program teaches 13,500 students to increase their physical activity, make wiser nutritional choices, and improve their overall health. (Graduate Report)

Mid-Valley Behavioral Care Network in Salem, OR
Early Assessment and Support Team (EAST)
EAST follows best practice guidelines from the foremost international experts, the Early Psychosis Prevention and Intervention Center in Australia. This project provides community education, rapid, flexible outreach, engagement and assessment, psychiatric treatment, illness education, therapy and help finding resources, family education and support for independent living, school, work and other goals. (Graduate Report)

Mountainlands Community Health Center in Provo, UT
Dental Project of Utah County
The Dental Project of Utah County is an outreach program of the Mountainlands Community Health Center and Community Health Connect (CHC). Established in 1999, CHC works to improve access to health care for low-income, uninsured residents of Utah County through a network of volunteer doctors, dentists, labs, hospitals, clinics, and more. (Graduate Report)

National Indian Youth Leadership Project, Inc. in Gallup, NM
Venturing Beyond Prevention
This program combines Project Venture, a nationally recognized substance abuse prevention model for Native American youth, with mental health services and supports. Venturing Beyond Prevention is designed to improve and increase the opportunity for Native American youth with social and emotional issues to participate in and benefit from interactive activities that promote learning and teaching opportunities. (Graduate Report)

Northern Virginia Community College Educational Foundation, Inc. in Annandale, VA
Rainbow for Healthier Communities
This project substantially increases access to affordable, quality, and culturally and linguistically sensitive health care for low-income, uninsured, and underserved residents of the Northern Virginia region while educating a health care workforce trained to deliver community-based health care focused on disease prevention and wellness. (Graduate Report)

Oasis Women's Counseling Center in Birmingham, AL
WholeHealth
The WholeHealth Initiative seeks to increase access to behavioral health care for low-income women of childbearing age by partnering with local public healthcare providers to integrate mental health screening and treatment referral into existing systems of care. Through outreach, the project provides mental health education and seeks to reduce stigma and other barriers to treatment. (Graduate Report)

Seattle King County Department of Public Health in Seattle, WA
Sea-Tac Smiles
Sea-Tac Smiles was created to increase dental services for low-income, immigrant residents in south King County and to provide training for students preparing for dental professions. (Graduate Report)

They are from 13 different countries and speak 16 different languages but they have one thing in common: they care a lot about oral health. ... Walking into the dental assisting classroom at OSC there is a sense of ordered chaos. A group of students may be going over an over-sized model of teeth with Dental Assisting Instructor, Carol Scharnikow, others may be working independently on computers and other students clad in clinic scrubs are working with dental staff in the freshly painted clinic separated from the classroom by just a wall of windows.  (Graduate Story)

South Asian Network in Artesia, CA
Community Health Action Initiative - CHAI
This initiative provides culturally and linguistically competent outreach, case management, and health education to underserved, low-income persons of South Asian origin in Southern California to promote basic health care and healthy lifestyle choices. (Graduate Report)

Just as Vandana Ranjan, the multilingual Community Health Advisor, has settled in with a hot cup of “chai,” the phone rings. On the other end was a concerned female voice speaking in Punjabi, asking about “how breast cancer is spread.” The woman identified herself as Pooja and tells Vandana that someone in her Gurudwara (Sikh place of worship) had breast cancer and her breast has been removed. She says, “what Karma this woman must have brought from her past life to have such a horrible thing happen to her.” In her frantic voice she showed concern not only for herself but also for women in her family and at the Gurudwara. (Graduate Story)

Thresholds in Chicago, IL
Doorway to Integrated Health Care
To improve health outcomes for people with severe and persistent mental illness this project partners Thresholds, a recognized provider of psychiatric rehabilitation services to low income and uninsured individuals, and the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Nursing. Advance practice nurses provide primary care and help Thresholds' members manage chronic diseases such as diabetes, pursue behavioral health goals such as smoking cessation, and counter the unhealthful side effects of some pharmaceutical agents. (Graduate Report)

“I had a dream a few days ago that I saw my guardian angel and he said I was going to die,” says Julie, stopping nurse practitioner Diane in the hallway of the Thresholds Psychiatric Rehabilitation day program.  “I’m just so scared, what can I do?” (Graduate Story)

United Teen Equality Center (UTEC) in Lowell, MA
Streetworker Program
The Streetworker program increases access to both primary health care and mental health services, works to reduce gang violence and promotes healthier lifestyle choices for youth within the Southeast Asian community. (Graduate Report)

Similar to the gang-initiation ritual he endured, Ricky expected to be beaten and punched by his gang brothers for a specific number of seconds when he decided to drop out of the gang. .. They dropped him off at the hospital when they thought they heard his neck crack and he lay in a coma for 10 days. (Graduate Story)

University of Alabama at Birmingham in Birmingham, AL
BODYLOVE Program Dissemination Project
This radio soap opera engages the audience in story lines that include information about prevalent health problems in the African American community. As the characters change long-held beliefs and behaviors that put them at risk for diabetes or heart disease, the audience learns along with them. Every show is followed by 15 minutes of discussion and call-in with local experts on the health topic raised in the program. (Graduate Report)

Now it's 7:55 and the show begins at 8:00. Is the host coming? Rev. King says she should be along soon and goes into the control room and starts broadcasting. We hear him greet the listeners and put on some music.  Just when it seems like there will be no host for the BodyLove show, in walks Frances Ford ... Rev. King introduces BodyLove and starts to play the week’s episode. (Graduate Story)

West Side Ecumenical Ministry in Cleveland, OH
Creando Posibilidades/Creating Possibilities
Creando Posibilidades is a workforce development project targeted at increasing access to health care for Cleveland, Ohio's Near West Side Hispanic population by recruiting and training Hispanic youth and adults for health care careers, particularly in nursing, and placing qualified individuals into entry-level health care career positions with health benefits. (Graduate Report)

Women's 12-Step Recovery Center, Inc. in Kansas City, MO
Famiy Recovery Coalition
This diverse partnership provides a strong connected network of services to women and their families who are at many points along the path to recovery from substance use and abuse. Services include transitional housing, substance abuse education/prevention, employment/training, counseling and legal services. (Graduate Report)

The first meeting she never once looked the counselor in the face and her fatigued eyes never left her trembling hands, her voice softer than a mouse’s whisper. Not yet able to acknowledge how far she had already come just by going through treatment and staying sober, Tina could only see the long dark road that stretched out endlessly in front of her and felt the familiar dread of having to tell yet another person what a failure she was. (Graduate Story)

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