May 10, 2007
Contact: Bev Pfeifer-Harms
Director of Communications
314.345.5500 office

Foundation Awards $8.2 Million in Grants

57 Missouri Organizations Receive Support

St. Louis - - Fifty-seven Missouri organizations have received a share of $8,262,786 in grants from Missouri Foundation for Health (MFH) to provide improved healthcare opportunities.

The funding comes through three MFH programs: Basic Support, which funds organizations' ongoing staff/operations costs in support of their mission; Primary Care Access Initiative, which seeks to improve community access to quality healthcare; and Co-Occurring Disorders priority area grant, which encourages integration of services for individuals dealing with mental health and substance abuse issues.

Those organizations receiving Basic Support grants are:

• American Liver Foundation - Missouri Chapter, St. Louis, $100,000. This organization provides public education, community services, support and research for individuals with liver disease.
• Arthur Center, Mexico, $100,000. This community health center provides psychiatric services to individuals in Audrain, Callaway, Monroe, Montgomery, Pike and Ralls counties, in central and northeast Missouri.
• AVENUES, Hannibal, $100,000. This organization provides shelter and counseling to victims of domestic violence.
• Carter County Senior Citizens Council, Inc., Van Buren, $58,294. This organization provides home-delivered meals to seniors in southeast Missouri.
• Center for Hearing-Speech, St. Louis, $100,000. This organization provides hearing and speech evaluation and therapy services.
• Central Institute for the Deaf, St. Louis, $100,000. This organization provides audiology services to hearing-impaired children.
  
• Central Missouri Food Bank, Columbia, $100,000. This organization provides food to people in need in 33 Missouri counties.
• CHART Teen Task Force, Hannibal, $33,540. This northeast Missouri organization provides education and preventive services to decrease unintended pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases.
• Christos House, West Plains, $100,000. This organization is a shelter for victims of domestic violence in south central Missouri.
• Crime Victim Advocacy Center of St. Louis, St. Louis, $100,000. This organization provides counseling services to crime and violence victims.
• Developmental Center of the Ozarks, Springfield, $100,000. This organization provides health care services to individuals with developmental disabilities and special health needs.
• Edgewood Children's Center, St. Louis, $200,000. This organization provides residential treatment for children with severe emotional and behavioral disorders.
• Epilepsy Foundation of the St. Louis Region, St. Louis, $100,000. This organization provides education and assistance to individuals with epilepsy.
• Family Counseling Center of Missouri, Inc., Columbia, $100,000. This organization provides individual, group and family outpatient drug and alcohol abuse counseling.
• Food Outreach, Inc., St. Louis, $100,000. This organization provides food and nutritional counseling to people living with HIV/AIDS and cancer.
• Gibson Recovery Center, Inc., Cape Girardeau, $100,000. This organization provides drug and alcohol abuse treatment services to southeast Missouri residents.
• Hi-Pointe Center, Inc., St. Louis, $52,524. This organization distributes food and provides health screenings and other services to residents in need.
• Homemaker Health Care, Inc., Jefferson City, $100,000. This organization provides home care services to senior citizens and the disabled.
• The H.O.U.S.E., Inc., Webb City, $100,000. This organization provides transitional housing and support services for recovering substance abusers living in southwest Missouri.
• House of Pais, Inc., St. Louis, $53,562. This organization provides counseling and mental health services to individuals in need.
  
• Kenny Rogers Children Center, Sikeston, $100,000. This organization provides physical, speech and occupational therapy for children with special needs in southeast Missouri.
• Kids' Harbor, Inc., Osage Beach, $100,000. This central Missouri organization provides treatment to child abuse victims.
• The Kitchen, Inc., Springfield, $100,000. This organization provides emergency shelter, medical and dental services to those who cannot afford it.
• La Clinica-Latino Health Care Centers, St. Louis, $100.000. This organization provides healthcare services to underinsured and uninsured immigrants and refugees.
• Lafayette House, Joplin, $100,000. This organization provides health services to women and children victimized by domestic violence.
• Little Sisters of the Poor, St. Louis, $200,000. This organization provides care and housing for the elderly.
• Memory Care Home Solutions, St. Louis, $100,000. This organization provides training to caregivers of people with memory loss, dementia, or Alzheimer's disease.
• Midtown Catholic Community Services, St. Louis, $200,000. This organization provides family assistance, community health and maternal child services.
• The Mildred Brady and Rena Martin Charitable Eye Foundation, St. Louis, $20,200. This organization provides ophthalmology services to those in need.
• Mission Missouri, Sikeston, $100,000. This organization provides crisis services to individuals and families with substance abuse problems living in southeast Missouri.
• Missouri Highlands Health Care, Ellington, $200,000. This federally qualified health center provides primary medical care services to residents of Carter, Reynolds, Shannon and Iron counties in southeast Missouri.
• Missouri Rural Health Association, Jefferson City, $36,444. This organization provides educational programs about the health needs of rural Missourians.
• NAMI Southwest Missouri, Springfield, $100,000. This organization provides programs and services to individuals affected by mental illness.
• New Vision Youth and Family Services, Cape Girardeau, $100,000. This organization provides mental health counseling to children and families in southeast Missouri.
  
• Nurses for Newborns Foundation, St. Louis, $100,000. This organization offers home-based programs that provide education, healthcare and positive parenting skills.
• Ozarks Regional YMCA, Springfield, $200,000. This organization provides wellness and nutrition services to individuals in southwest Missouri.
• Perry County Nursing Home, Inc., Perryville, $200,000. This organization provides retirement and health care services to the elderly in southeast Missouri.
• Pregnancy Care Center, Springfield, $100,000. This organization provides pregnancy testing and counseling to women in southwest Missouri.
• Progressive Youth Connection, St. Louis, $100,000. This organization provides counseling services to at-risk youth and families.
• Rainbow House Emergency Shelter & Regional Child Advocacy Center, Columbia, $100,000. This organization is an emergency shelter for abused and neglected children.
• Ride On St. Louis, Kimmswick, $42,198. This organization provides equine-assisted therapy for developmentally and physically disabled and disadvantaged youth in the St. Louis area.
• Ripley County Family Resource Center, Doniphan, $42,538. This organization provides counseling and other services to individuals in Ripley County in southeast Missouri.
• Ronald McDonald House, St. Louis, $100,000. This organization provides housing for families of seriously ill hospitalized children.
• St. Louis Diabetes Coalition, St. Louis, $33,046. This organization works to improve diabetes awareness and education in the region.
• Saint Louis Effort for AIDS, St. Louis, $100,000. This organization provides education and support services to individuals with HIV/AIDS.
• St. Louis Peregrine Society, Inc., St. Louis, $100,000. This organization provides patient services to individuals with cancer.
• Stone County Assistance Team - Lakes Area Child Advocacy Center, Branson West, $43,560. This organization provides forensic interviews and physical exams to child abuse victims in southwest Missouri.
• United Cancer Assistance Network, Poplar Bluff, $65,270. This organization provides transportation and other support services to individuals with cancer in southeast Missouri.
• The Walker Scottish Rite Clinic for Childhood Language Disorders of St. Louis, Inc., St. Louis, $100,000. This organization provides speech therapy and other audiology services to young children.
• Whole Health Outreach, Ellington, $100,000. This organization targets unmet health needs in rural southern Missouri through programs for families and individuals not qualified to receive assistance from other agencies.
• Whole Kids Outreach, Ellington, $100,000. This faith-based organization provides educational and healthcare programs for children in rural southern Missouri.
• YMCA of Callaway County, Fulton, $100,000. This organization provides wellness and nutrition services to individuals in central Missouri.

Those organizations receiving funding through MFH's Primary Care Access Initiative are:

• Advocates for a Healthy Community, Inc., Springfield, $900,000. Funding supports creation of a new $3.4 million healthcare center, focusing on pediatric and women's services for residents in 10 southwest Missouri counties, to not only fill current gaps in services but to create access to continuous, coordinated prenatal-to-adulthood healthcare.
• Community Health Center of Central Missouri, Linn, $900,000. This grant helps fund a new $3.4 million facility to provide medical, dental, mental health care and substance abuse services to uninsured, underinsured and underserved residents in central Missouri.
• Great Mines Health Center, Potosi, $600,000. This grant provides half of the funding for a $1.2 million expansion to the Community Health Center of Rural DeSoto, south of the St. Louis metropolitan area. Funding supports an expansion of staff and service hours to meet the growing client needs.
• Northeast Missouri Health Council, Kirksville, $599,083. Expansion of dental services to uninsured, underinsured and underserved residents of eight northeast Missouri counties is the focus of this grant. Funding supports hiring dental staff in an area that is chronically underserved.

As part of its Co-Occurring Disorders priority area grant (PAG), MFH approved the University of Missouri-Missouri Institute of Mental Health (MIMH) for a $147,797 grant to provide evaluation services for the PAG. MIMH will evaluate the effectiveness of the 11 Missouri programs funded in 2006 through this PAG, and help MFH decide how to strengthen this funding effort.

Established in 2000, MFH is the largest non-governmental funder of community health activities in Missouri. MFH is in its sixth year of grantmaking, having issued more than $215 million in grants and awards to date. It is dedicated to serving the uninsured, underinsured and underserved in 84 Missouri counties and the City of St. Louis.

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