December 20, 2006
Contact: Bev Pfeifer-Harms
314.345.5500 office

Foundation Awards Tobacco Cessation, Strategic Planning Grants to Kirksville-Area Organizations

St. Louis -Preferred Family Healthcare, Inc. has received a $521,366 grant from Missouri Foundation for Health (MFH) to implement workplace-based tobacco cessation programs in 12 northeast Missouri counties.

The workplace programs have been developed by the American Lung Association and are a component of a coordinated effort to increase access to cessation programs.

The two-year grant funds efforts to reduce adult smoking rates in Adair, Clark, Knox, Lewis, Linn, Macon, Marion, Putnam, Schuyler, Scotland, Shelby and Sullivan counties. These workplace programs have been developed by the American Lung Association and are a component of a coordinated effort to increase access to cessation programs.

The grant is part of MFH's nine-year, $40 million Tobacco Prevention and Cessation Initiative, now entering its third year of grantmaking. To date, MFH has given $11.4 million in grants to Missouri organizations for school-based prevention programming and workplace cessation programming.

Additionally, Adair County Nursing Home District received a $4,200 grant from MFH to develop a strategic plan that will improve their future resources and better position the organization to meet the needs of the growing aging population in the county.

Established in 2000 through the for-profit conversion of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Missouri, MFH is the largest non-governmental funder of community health activities in the state. MFH is in its fourth year of grantmaking, issuing more than $195 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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