The PacificSource Foundation for Health Improvement and PacificSource Health Plans recently committed $400,000 in joint funding to support Fostering Hope Initiative (FHI), from Catholic Community Services. The PacificSource Foundation for Health Improvement provided $325,000 in grant funding with PacificSource Health Plans providing the remaining $75,000.
FHI is a neighborhood-based, collective impact initiative bringing together partners to ensure every child and youth in every neighborhood lives in a safe, stable, nurturing home, is healthy, succeeds at school, and goes on to financial self-sufficiency. FHI works within high-poverty, high-need neighborhoods to connect families with wraparound supports and community partner networks.
“This grant helps ensure that community health workers who are bilingual, bicultural, and who really know the neighbors they’re serving will be able to continue their work on this important effort,” said Marian Blankenship, Executive Director of PacificSource’s Foundation for Health Improvement.
“We are proud to partner with the PacificSource Foundation to support the important work being done by CCS in the local community where our members live, work, and raise their families,” said Ken Provencher, President and CEO of PacificSource.
FHI Community Health Workers at work at CCS headquarters
“The support from PacificSource Foundation for Health Improvement and PacificSource Health Plans is a game changer. It allows us to expand crucial services aimed at strengthening families and communities with a prevention approach, ultimately reducing the need for high-cost health and human services for families in neighborhoods where help is needed most,” said Josh Graves, CCS Chief Executive Officer. “It will impact thousands of lives while also setting the stage for ongoing investment in cost-effective, place-based preventive services.”
Catholic Community Services has more than 80 years of experience providing social services to the most vulnerable residents in communities throughout the Mid-Willamette Valley and Central Coast. Our mission is realized through 12 programs, reaching more than 5,000 individuals each year.
Pictured above are FHI’s Community Health Workers Carina Garibay, Maria Lemus and Pio Kuor, who are part of a team of eight who are carrying out the essential services funded by the proposal.