Organizations benefit from local grants
Kaiser Permanente is providing support for a new behavioral center in Watsonville that will increase access to substance abuse treatment and other outpatient programs and services in Santa Cruz County, according to a release from Kaiser.
The $200,000 grant to support the construction of Encompass Community Services’ Sí Se Puede behavioral health center is one of 10 grants totaling $1.87 million Kaiser Permanente is providing in the Santa Cruz County area.
Kaiser Permanente is also supporting other nonprofit organizations in Santa Cruz County including:
• Housing Matters will receive $500,000 to help fund 120 studio apartments for chronically homeless individuals who will have on-site access to 24-hours-a-day support services.
• Health Improvement Partnership of Santa Cruz will receive $150,000 in the next two years to help support safety net clinics responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Community Action Board of Santa Cruz County’s South County Family Health Initiative will receive $150,000 in the next two years to help 100 low-income families and young adults disproportionately affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
• Community Bridges’ Building Strong Foundations for Families will receive $150,000 to increase access to mental health and social services for the underrepresented Latinx community.
• First 5 Santa Cruz County will receive $80,000 to provide Medi-Cal enrollment assistance to mothers and their newborns, linking them to services before they leave the hospital.
• Salud Para La Gente will receive $150,000 to provide farmworkers and immigrants with preventive health care, and COVID-19 outreach, education and vaccines.
• Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Cruz County will receive $300,000 to provide food directly to families in need and help them sign up for CalFresh food aid.
• United Way of Santa Cruz County will receive $100,000 to support an information and referral service that connects people to health and social services.
• Dientes Community Dental Care will receive $85,000 to provide dental care for low-income and homeless people and their children.
Hospice honored
Hospice of Santa Cruz County has been named a 2021 Hospice Honors recipient by HEALTH
CAREfirst. Hospice Honors recognizes hospices providing the highest level of quality as measured from the family/caregiver’s point of view.
Award criteria were based on hospice Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems survey results for an evaluation period of October 2019 to September 2020. Award recipients were identified by evaluating performance on a set of 24 quality indicator
measures. Performance scores were aggregated from all completed surveys and were compared on a questionby-question basis to a National Performance Score calculated from all hospices contained in the HEALTHCAREfirst’s Hospice CAHPS database.
The San Lorenzo Valley Museum has been awarded $2,000 for the project titled “Birth Happens” by California Humanities announced as part of the recent round of Humanities
For All Quick Grant awards.
The Humanities For All Quick Grant is a competitive grant program of California Humanities that supports locally-initiated public humanities projects that respond to the needs and interests of Californians, encourage greater public participation in humanities programming, particularly by new and/or underserved audiences, and promotes understanding and empathy among all our state’s peoples in order to cultivate a thriving democracy.
The “Birth Happens” project celebrates the
history of midwifery in Santa Cruz County through an exhibition at the Faye G. Belardi Memorial Gallery in Felton, a Speaker Series of events being held on the second Tuesday of the month at the Felton Branch Library, and the collection of first person oral histories.
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