Dignity Health Donates More Than $994K to Sacramento-area Nonprofits In 2022

Sacramento, Calif. (August 30, 2022) – Dignity Health announced the distribution of more than $994K to 16 community-based organizations in Nevada, Sacramento, and Yolo counties to improve the health and well-being of vulnerable and underserved populations. The goal of this year’s donations is to assist those most vulnerable in the region and bring about real and lasting improvements through housing support and mental health programs. 

“Dignity Health is committed to investing in projects that promote the health and vitality of the communities where we live and work,” said Dignity Health Community Health and Outreach Manager, Phoua Moua. “Giving back has long been an integral part of our mission, and we are proud to support organizations who are going above and beyond to meet the needs of our community.” 

In total, Dignity Health awarded community grants to 16 partnership projects.

“We are proud to partner with organizations with the shared vision to improve the health and well-being of our community,” said Michael Korpiel, Greater Sacramento Market President. “Our partners use innovative solutions and strong partnerships to serve the diverse needs of our community, including physical and mental health care, social services, housing, food, education, and training.” 

Every three years, Dignity Health and our health system partners conduct a Community Health Needs Assessment in each county to determine priorities for giving. The 2022 community assessment indicated that having access to mental and behavioral health and substance-use services are key priorities for the region, as well as having access to basic needs such as housing, jobs, and food. With this in mind, Dignity Health and its grant committee selected several organizations to help address this need including Anti-Recidivism Coalition’s (ARC) Supportive Housing and Reentry Initiative which helps to provide housing, mentorship, and workforce development for formerly incarcerated individuals. 

“At the Anti-Recidivism Coalition (ARC), we are committed to empowering formerly and currently incarcerated people to thrive by providing a support network, comprehensive reentry services, and opportunities to advocate for policy change,” said ARC’s Director of Sacramento, Josef Gray. “With the support of Dignity Health, our Supportive Housing and Reentry Initiative helps to bridge the housing gap and reduce the number of homeless individuals struggling on the streets.”

Grant projects address issues impacting children through senior populations. For information on 2022 partnerships and projects, view the summary below.

2022 Community Health & Outreach Grant Award Summary

The Greater Sacramento Market has awarded community grants to sixteen collaborative projects across Sacramento, Yolo and Nevada counties for CY 2022.

In Sacramento County, $813,423 in community grants have been awarded to eleven community partnership projects. 

Connect to Health—Supporting Healthy Newcomer Community: This project provides culturally and linguistically congruent health and mental health navigation services and supports refugees and immigrants as an underserved community in Sacramento. This project aims to address health disparities, promote independent health access, and connect refugees and immigrants to basic needs resources. 

• Lead Organization: International Rescue Committee, Inc. 
• Partners: River City Food Bank, One Community Health, Creekside Adult Center, San Juan Adult Education, and Turning Point Community Programs Mental Health Urgent Care Clinic 

#RAGE Healing increases the capacity of a youth-driven community wellness hub to provide individual support and increase youth-led healing practices (peer-to-peer support) both virtually and in person. The project components include: Direct healing services, the development of a RAGE Healing Youth Collaborative (including building capacity among youth social entrepreneurs), and Training & Trauma Stewardship for those serving Black youth. 

• Lead Organization: The Race and Gender Equity Project 
• Partners: RoccSolid Logistics, LLC., Sacramento Unified School District (SCUSD) Foster Youth Services (FYS), and Monroe Howard Transformational Coaching 

Anti-Recidivism Coalition’s (ARC) Supportive Housing and Reentry Initiative: This program seeks to bridge the gap of housing and reentry into the community through the strategic partnerships with Exodus Project Sacramento, and FreedomThrough Education. Both of these organizations provide transitional housing sites within Sacramento County. The program further seeks to integrate existing ARC wraparound member services and workforce development programs into a larger model that also includes housing support within facilities that are operated by partner organizations. 

• Lead Organization: The Anti-Recidivism Coalition 
• Partners: Exodus Project Sacramento and Freedom Through Education 

Increase of Client Capacity and Collaborative Services: This project goal is to increase homeless services with housing, case management including assistance with financial literacy. The program uses a RV fleet to house homeless individuals and families. A case management team will create case-specific plans and goals for each client and family to hold them accountable every week during their time in the program. This project will specifically assist in credit repair financial services in order for clients to be able to rent a home. 

• Lead Organization: EveryONE Matters Ministries 
• Partners: Women's Empowerment and Operation Hope

Access to Food for Low-Income Families through Sacramento School Districts: The partners are working together to provide staple grocery items to families to support their child’s health through the school food pantry project. This project will serve the hard-to-reach food insecure families as well as meet the increased immediate need for food access resulting from the pandemic and remove barriers to accessing food since it will be available on the school site. Food resources will also be offered to assist schools with developing positive, trusting relationships with families in need. 

• Lead Organization: Sacramento Food Bank & Family Services 
• Partners: California Association of Food Banks and Raley’s Food for Families

Recreate for Health is an outdoor endeavor that believes in the power of being rejuvenated in nature. The week-long summer program seeks to encourage youth to learn new skills, be active, and mentally and physically engage with nature. The program consists of outdoor outings that range from fishing trips to healing circles and bike rides to trips to the ocean. It is extremely important to be safe in regards to public health and offer activities that are outside, but also encourage connectedness due to the isolation and stress that COVID has exacerbated in some communities. 

• Lead Organization: Bike Lab
• Partners: Always Knocking and Hooked on Fishing not Violence

YMCA Kids Health and Wellness Workshop 2022 will seek to provide a healthy and safe space for homeless children (K-12). The children alongside other developmental curricula will learn about the value of positive healthy lifestyle choices and ways of reducing their risk of lifestyle-related chronic illness. 

• Lead Organization: YMCA of Superior California 2 Hello Humankindness 
• Partners: St. John's Program for Real Change, First Step Communities, and Bridge Network Co.

Truth Sets You Free Part 2: Living Informed Free of Trauma, Intergenerationally (LIFTING): This program strategically aligned with three partners to formalize a structural framework for mental wellness that is culturally engaging, relevant, and sustainable by addressing Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES). By leveraging the generational roots of more than 4 decades in the 95838 and 95815 zip codes, this program will teach families the impact of ACEs on health outcomes through healing circles with mental and physical learning tools and reference guides. The impact is improvement in disease management, violence suppression and literacy. 

• Lead Organization: Neighborhood Wellness Foundation 
• Partners: Jubilare Evangelistic Ministries, Del Paso Union Baptist Church, and Sacramento Regional Family Justice Center

Health Equity Collaborative: The project will educate and provide the Hmong and Iu-Mien communities with a variety of free health-related services and healthcare topics to improve the concerning health status and disparity in both communities. The project will also engage and educate youth and seniors in these communities on reporting crimes for a violence-free community through local partnerships and collaborations. 

• Lead Organization: Hmong Youth Parents United 
• Partners: Iu-Mien Community Services and Hmong Nurses Association 

Bigs with Badges Sacramento Mentoring Program Bigs with Badges is a one-to-one mentoring program that connects youth with law enforcement officers and first responders to build lasting relationships. Bigs with Badges is an extension of a proven, research-based program backed by years of strong results of higher aspirations for youth, avoidance of risky behaviors and educational success among participants. This program will provide much-needed, high-impact, and lasting mentoring relationships for 40 youth over two years. 

• Lead Organization: Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Greater Sacramento Area 
• Partners: California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department

Salud en la Comunidad (SelC): Salud en la Comunidad connects and navigates low-income, under-insured/uninsured, predominantly Latino, Sacramento youth and residents with health education and social service resources. SelC will utilize a holistic, coordinated-care approach to well-being by providing behavioral health, COVID-19, Hello Humankindness education and prevention, health education and access to primary, vision, and oral health services. In addition, SelC recruits, trains and builds leadership capacity among underrepresented youth leaders to advocate for upstream public health policy solutions and systems changes that may increase access to healthcare, mental health and substance abuse services, positively reform the youth criminal justice system, and address the basic needs of youth. 

• Lead Organization: Latino Coalition for Healthy California 
• Partners: Youth Forward and La Familia Counseling Center, Inc.

In Yolo County, $98,589 in community grants has been awarded to two community partnership projects:

Restorative Community Program: This is a multi-faceted, interlocking strategy that leverages food stabilization, resource provision, and supportive services into opportunities for independent life skills mentoring and restorative job training. The goal of the Restorative Community Program is to create pockets of healthy social support; greater housing retention; and mental, physical, social and fiscal well-being for our unhoused and most vulnerable community members. 

• Lead Organization: Mercy Coalition of West Sacramento 
• Partners: Yolo Food Bank, City of West Sacramento, Yolo County Health & Human Services Agency, and Collings Teen Center/Campus Life Connection

Growing Healthy Together: The IRC and project partners will provide nutrition and garden-based education to students and teachers in the Washington Unified School District through the afterschool program.  Students and their families will also receive culturally appropriate nutritional information and be connected to food resources in the community.

• Lead Organization: International Rescue Committee. Inc.
• Partners: NorCal Resist and After School Education and Safety at Washington Unified School District

 In Nevada County, $82,725 in community grants has been awarded to three community partnership projects:

Defending Potential in Youth Through Mentoring: The focus for this project is for the Big Brothers and Big Sisters site-based program within the schools where adult or high school mentors meet for 1 hour.  The mentor and child meet to engage in a variety of activities such as homework, reading together, doing school projects or arts and crafts together, playing board games, or playing outside.

• Lead Organization: Big Brothers Big Sisters of Northern Sierra
• Partners: Nevada Joint Union High School District, Grass Valley School District, and Nevada County Behavioral Health

Counseling, Education and Transportation for the Blind and Visually Impaired: This program provides counseling and education as needed to help the blind and visually impaired retain their independence. They use support groups that meet twice a month, larger groups for education and independence and provide group quarterly community access to restaurants. Transportation is also provided for program functions and medical and health-related services for clients. Clients have access to vision devices such as magnifiers, CCTV and other assistive technologies.

• Lead Organization: Sierra Services for the Blind
• Partners: FREED, Gold Country Senior Services, and Nevada County Adult Services

Food Bank Home Delivery Program: This program provides a weekly supply and delivery of nutritious food and selected hygiene items to people who cannot make it to one of the distribution sites. The main target population for this program is mainly those that are homebound due to a disability, medical condition, or confirmed lack of transportation that prevents them from attending one of the food bank’s bi-monthly Grass Valley distributions or the monthly North San Juan distributions.

• Lead Organization: Food Bank of Nevada County
• Partners: FREED, Connecting Point 211, and Sierra Family Health Center

###

About Dignity Health

Dignity Health is a multi-state nonprofit network of 10,000 physicians, more than 60,000 employees, 41 acute care hospitals, and 400-plus care-centers, including community hospitals, urgent care, surgery and imaging centers, home health, and primary care clinics in Arizona, California, and Nevada. Dignity Health is dedicated to providing compassionate, high-quality, and affordable patient-centered care with special attention to the poor and underserved. Dignity Health is a part of CommonSpirit Health, a nonprofit health system committed to advancing health for all people and dedicated to serving the common good. For more information, please visit our website at www.DignityHealth.org.