H.E.L.P. FUND: Grants address local health needs.
Launched in 2003, the Health Efforts for Local People Fund provides
grants to local not-for-profit agencies to meet health-related needs.
The fund added several new projects for 2007, including case management
for formerly homeless women with disabilities who are served through
the Catholic Charities' housing grant, a U.C.P. project to assist children
who have been on feeding tubes in learning to eat, a health monitoring
program for clients with serious mental illness, and support to the
No More Stares conference. Funding was renewed for projects to provide
test strips or educational services for low-income diabetics, cancer
screening supplies, and dental services for children from low-income
families.
A simple listing of the H.E.L.P. Fund projects, however, cannot convey the impact that these programs have on clients' lives. A child with serious dental disease, for example, not only faces constant pain, but also risks a life-threatening spread of the infection. And how could a child with a terrible toothache ever be able to learn? Last year the fund helped to make it possible for 39 children to receive extensive oral surgery. In one of the cases, in spite of all the attempts to save the primary teeth, a three-year-old child had to have 11 extractions and nine pulpotomis and crowns! Prevention is also part of the issue, and two of the agencies with which United Way has partnered, the Patee Market Youth Dental Clinic and the Social Welfare Board, are promoting preventative measures.
