Dignity Health Donates Nearly $1.15M to Sacramento-area Nonprofits in 2023

SACRAMENTO, CA - January 17, 2023 - 

Dignity Health announced today the distribution of nearly $1.15M to 17 community-based organizations in Nevada, Sacramento, and Yolo counties. The goal of this contribution is to improve the health and well-being of vulnerable and underserved populations and bring about real and lasting improvements to the region. 

“Giving back has always been an integral part of our mission, and we are proud to continue supporting organizations who are going above and beyond to meet the needs of our community,” said Dignity Health Community Health and Outreach Manager, Phoua Moua. “Through these partnerships, we are able to address our community's most complex health and human challenges.” 

“I am constantly inspired by our community partners for the unique and innovative solutions they come up with to serve the diverse needs of our community, including physical and mental health care, social services, housing, food, education, and training,” said Michael Korpiel, Greater Sacramento Market President of Dignity Health. “By investing in these organizations, our goal is to foster belonging and inclusivity, equip our community with the resources and support they need to live a healthy and prosperous life and limit serious future health interventions.”

Every three years, Dignity Health and health system partners conduct a Community Health Needs Assessment in each county to determine the most pressing health priorities. The 2022 community assessment indicated that having access to mental and behavioral health and substance-use services are key priorities, 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 the Greater Sacramento Urban League. Greater Sacramento Urban League’s Cut to the Chase program is dedicated to providing culturally specific behavioral health resources and support that is uniquely tailored to Black men. 

“At the Greater Sacramento Urban League, we are committed to empowering Black and other historically marginalized people throughout the region,” said Dwayne Crenshaw, President, and CEO of the Greater Sacramento Urban League. “With the support of Dignity Health, we can successfully address the stigma around Black males by providing support and help to those experiencing adverse childhood experiences, trauma, and mental-emotional health issues.” 

Grant projects address issues impacting children through senior populations. For information on 2023 partnerships and projects, view the summary below.

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2023 Community Health Improvement  Grant Award Summary

The Greater Sacramento Market has awarded community grants to seventeen collaborative projects across Sacramento, Yolo and Nevada counties for CY 2023.

In Sacramento County, $958,838 in community grants have been awarded to thirteen community partnership projects:

Newborn Hearing Diagnostic Program: CCHAT’s Newborn Hearing Diagnostic Program ensures that babies throughout the greater Sacramento area have access to timely hearing screenings and hearing health resources that will help mitigate the negative impacts often associated with hearing loss.

• Lead Organization: Children’s Choice for Hearing and Talking Sacramento (dba CCHAT Center)
• Collaborators: Northern California Hearing Coordination Center (NCHCC), Department of Health Care Services (DHCS), UC Davis Health Audiology, Midtown Nurse Midwives & MiLC Clinic, California Birthing Center
• Grant Award: $25,000 

Connect to Health - Supporting Healthy Newcomers Communities: This project aims to provide culturally and linguistically congruent health/mental health navigation services and psychosocial support to refugees and immigrants as an underserved community in Sacramento. This project directly addresses health disparities, promotes independent health access, enhances resilience and self-sufficiency, and connects refugees and immigrants to basic needs and resources. IRC Sacramento is committed to healthy and effective collaboration with our community partners in order to achieve these project outcome goals.

• Lead Organization: International Rescue Committee, Inc. (IRC)
• Collaborators: River City Food Bank, Turning Point Community Programs, and One Community Health
• Grant Award: $75,000

The Anti-Recidivism Coalition Supportive Housing and Reentry Collaborative: The Anti-Recidivism Coalition (ARC), in collaboration with its partners Exodus Project Sacramento and Freedom Through Education, will provide free transitional housing and reentry/system navigation services to formerly incarcerated youth and adults to support their reentry after incarceration.

• Lead Organization: The Anti-Recidivism Coalition (ARC)
  
• Collaborators: Exodus Project Sacramento and Freedom Through Education
• Grant Award: $100,000

Employ + Empower Health Equity Initiative: Employ + Empower Health Equity Initiative unites expertise in trauma-informed services, healthcare and housing resources, and support for individuals with barriers to employment into a program with the capacity for significant positive impact on the lives of human trafficking survivors. E+E, ODI, and SHPU seek to engage high-vulnerability clients in affirming, supportive health-equity programming, in order to bridge an identified gap in access to medical care in this community.

• Lead Organization: 3Strands Global Foundation
• Collaborators: Opening Doors, Inc. (ODI) and Sacramento County Department of Health – Sexual Health Promotion Unit (SHPU)
• Grant Award: $85,000

Future Focused: Fentanyl Education and Awareness Campaign: To bring education and awareness of drug prevention, counterfeit pills and Fentanyl poisoning deaths to students and teachers inside the classroom, to parents and guardians in Parent workshops, and to community members with Town Hall meetings, virtual trainings, and train the trainer opportunities. The expected outcome is to dramatically decrease the amount of counterfeit pills and Fentanyl poisoning deaths in our community. 

• Lead Organization: Arrive Alive California, Inc. (AAC)
• Collaborators: California Chaplain Corps, Song For Charlie (SFC), Sacramento County District Attorney's Office (SCDA), and Sacramento County Department of Public Health Services (SCDPH)
• Grant Award: $100,000

Fostering Community Resilience in Oak Park: In collaboration with local services, CASH is bringing an evidence-based resilience curriculum to victims of commercial sexual exploitation. Wrap-around services and programming for their children, will be included to foster connectivity within the community. 

• Lead Organization: Community Against Sexual Harm (CASH)
• Collaborators: The Sacramento Region Family Justice Center and City of Refuge
• Grant Award: $79,000

Cut to the Chase: Stigma exists around Black males discussing adverse childhood experiences, trauma, emotionality, and seeking help for mental-emotional health issues. In an effort to reduce stigma and address mental-emotional health proactively our project will provide culturally specific resources and support that is uniquely tailored to Black men in Del Paso Heights and Oak Park.

• Lead Organization: Greater Sacramento Urban League
• Collaborators: Capitol City Black Nurses Association and Brother Be Well 
• Grant Award: $75,000

CREER En Tu Salud: CREER En Tu Salud is a culturally appropriate program that bridges the access gap between Latino/a adults and the health, dental, vision, nutrition, behavioral and social supports that are often inaccessible to them. Through our partnership, Promotores will triage, connect, case manage and support Latino adults to reduce the access gaps to (1) quality health care; (2) mental/behavioral services; and (3) basic needs.

• Lead Organization: Latino Leadership Council, Inc. (LLC)
• Collaborators: Her Health First, Sacramento Environmental Justice Coalition (HHF is fiscal agent), Elica Health Centers
• Grant Award: $98,442

Holistic Approach Life Recovery Project: This project's principal activity is to remove hurdles which stand in the way of EMM client’s progress towards a future that is thriving, removing the opportunity for recidivism and breaking the cycle of poverty. The project includes stable housing for 12 months with weekly coaching, credit repair and education, and equine therapy for mental wellness and healing from trauma. EveryONE Matters Ministries provides stable housing and weekly case management services. Blue Water Credit will provide credit repair services and education for up to 6 months for each client. Hearts Landing Ranch will provide equine-assisted psychotherapy for healing of trauma and mental health issues for up to 8 sessions/weeks.

• Lead Organization: EveryOne Matters Ministries
• Collaborators: Hearts Landing Ranch, Blue Water Credit 
• Grant Award: $40,000

Truth Sets You Free Part 3: Shifting a Culture of Silence & Shame to Living Informed Free of Trauma (LIFT): Strategically aligned with four partners, NWF will lead a coordinated ACEs educational awareness campaign to expand our reach and provide a healing circle module that formalizes a mental wellness structural framework for guidance to dive deeper into our culture that silences our pain and continues to make us sick. We will help lift barriers that undermine learning to realize our full potential and continue to improve disease management, violence mitigation and literacy in 95838/95815.

• Lead Organization:  Neighborhood Wellness Foundation
• Collaborators: Jubilare Evangelistic Ministries (JEM), Del Paso Union Baptist Church (DPUBC), Sacramento Regional Family Justice Center (SRFJC), Souljah's After Christ
• Grant Award: $100,000

Continuum of Care for Sacramento’s Low-Income and Homeless Pregnant Women and New Moms: Our collaborative will focus on ensuring 500 low-income pregnant women and new moms across Sacramento have all of the care they need to transition to parenthood, including a healthy pregnancy, safe home, parenting support and employment. Our partnership will provide pregnancy tests and ultrasounds, Medi-Cal presumptive eligibility signups, prenatal and postnatal care, pediatric care, housing search assistance, parenting education and support, clinical support for domestic violence and substance use, childcare search assistance and job-readiness training.

• Lead Organization: Sacramento Life Center 
• Collaborators: WellSpace Health, Women’s Empowerment
• Grant Award: $36,396

The Disease & Injury Prevention thru Harm Reduction Project (The DIP Project): The DIP Project will use established relationships that HRS, SANE, and GHC have developed with the unhoused of Sacramento to connect them to quality healthcare and assist them in preventing disease and injury associated with poor nutrition and the hardships of surviving on the streets, by enrolling them in Medi-Cal, navigating them into a primary care clinic, providing wound care, hygiene supplies, nutritious foods, and education on how to manage wound/disease while experiencing homelessness.

• Lead Organization: Harm Reduction Services
• Collaborators: Safer Alternatives Thru Networking and Education (SANE), Gender Health Center
• Grant Award: $45,000

#RAGE Healing: #RAGE Healing 3.0 serves to expand and deepen 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. Project components include: Direct healing services, the RAGE HEAL Fellowship, development of a Youth Healing Research Collaborative and Training & Trauma Stewardship for those serving Black youth.

• Lead Organization: The Race and Gender Equity Project
• Collaborators: Flyte Studio, Sacramento City Unified School District (SCUSD) Foster Youth Services (FYS), Monroe Howard Transformational Coaching
• Grant Award: $100,000

In Yolo County, $100,985 in community grants have been awarded to two community partnership projects:

Triple Play: A Game Plan for Woodland Youth-Mind, Body & Soul: Triple play is a comprehensive health & wellness program that will demonstrate how eating smart, keeping fit, and forming positive relationships add up to a healthy lifestyle. 100 Woodland youth will participate in the multifaceted program that will equip them with the critical skills needed to become healthy, successful and prepared for the future.

• Lead Organization: Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Sacramento
• Collaborators: Woodland Joint Unified School District, City of  Woodland       
• Grant Award: $47,500

Improved Overall Health Through Oral Health Care: The project focuses on increasing access to dental care to improve the oral health and overall health of Medi-Cal members. Activities will focus on 19 low-income schools in Yolo County and provide dental screenings, fluoride varnish, and dental care coordination for Medi-Cal members. Referrals to dental care are made through an electronic application. The app tracks the referral until a dental visit occurs and closes the referral loop.

• Lead Organization: Sacramento District Dental Society Foundation
• Collaborators: Oral Health Solutions, Yolo County Oral Health Program Children Now, Center for Oral Health 
• Grant Award: $53,485

In Nevada County, $86,845 in community grants have been awarded to two community partnership projects:

Connecting Youth to Positive Social Determinants of Health: Bright Futures for Youth improves access to basic needs, health care, mental health supports, substance use prevention and intervention services, and mitigates factors that contribute to poor health outcomes.

• Lead Organization: Bright Futures for Youth
• Collaborators: Community Beyond Violence, Western Sierra Medical Clinic Granite Wellness
• Grant Award: $43,045

Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Mobile Response Team: A formal collaboration between CBV and GVPD creating a mobile response team for domestic violence and sexual assault. The LEO will be responsible for making arrests and ensuring the safety of all involved, the DV/SA advocate will provide crisis intervention and trauma informed counseling and advocacy with the criminal justice system, medical system and refer appropriate parties for ongoing supportive services.

• Lead Organization: Community Beyond Violence
• Collaborators: Grass Valley Police Department, Nevada County Sheriff's Office, Nevada City Police Department
• Grant Award: $43,800

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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.