Healthcare Foundation announces new grantees

North and west county organizations given a range of funds for COVID support
  
The Healthcare Foundation of Northern Sonoma County (HCF) announced a new batch of awardees for its emergency grants, meant to help provide assistance to health and human service providers that are helping the community during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ten organizations were chosen to receive grants ranging from $5,000 to $15,000, totaling $100,000 being awarded from the Healthcare Foundation. While the Healthcare Foundation of Northern Sonoma County restricted applications to organizations that serve the communities of north county, some of the grant recipients are located elsewhere in the county and travel up to north county as part of their outreach.
The organizations receiving grants from the Healthcare Foundation include La Familia Sana, Latino Service Providers, Alliance Medical Center, Alexander Valley Healthcare, Corazón Healdsburg, Reach for Home, YWCA Sonoma County, Farm to Pantry, Farm to Fight Hunger and Food for Thought.
“The 2021 grants extend and amplify 2020 emergency COVID-19 funding of HCF has distributed through its Emergency Healthcare Fund since the pandemic began, bringing the total to $245,000,” said a press release from the foundation.
Kim Bender, executive director of HCF, announced the grant recipients over a Facebook Live video on March 16.
“The purpose of the emergency fund is to provide local, grassroots frontline organizations support for providing these services — access to health care, mental health and food to our most underserved community members — we listened to the community and these are the most dire needs for relief aligned with our mission,” Bender said.
While 10 organizations were awarded funds, 23 applied, showing the need that local organizations have for support during COVID-19.
“All of these organizations reported a big spike in demand for their services at the same time as they had a drop in volunteers, resulting in a tremendous burden on staff and other resources,” Bender said, noting that the funds from HCF are considered “general operating grants,” meaning organizations can use the money for their most urgent needs without restrictions.
“It’s been a long year since we’ve launched the emergency fund in March of 2020. Until the majority of our region has been fully vaccinated and businesses and schools have reopened, it’s all hands on deck,” Bender said.
Learn more about the awardees
●    La Familia Sana, a new grassroots organization whose mission is to provide health and wellness through education, direct support and advocacy to underserved Latinx and Indigenous communities, particularly in northern Sonoma County. This group has been doing on-the-ground education to farmworkers about COVID prevention, vaccine safety and how and where to get the vaccine.
●    Latino Service Providers serves as a bridge to resources in the Latinx community of Sonoma County by mobilizing a mutual aid network during disasters to provide food, basic necessities and financial assistance to those most in need. Since COVID-19, demand has increased dramatically.
●    Alliance Medical Center is a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) with clinics in both Healdsburg and Windsor. Since mid-February, they have helped vaccinate close to 5,000 eligible North County residents including agricultural workers and eligible seniors. As tiers allow, Alliance has added educators and restaurant workers, vaccinating a total of 400 to 500 people per day when vaccine supply is available.
●    Alexander Valley Healthcare (AVH), another FQHC based in Cloverdale. AVH has vaccinated approximately 5,000 eligible residents (including a large percentage of local farmworkers) at its weekly drive-through clinics since early February.
●    Corazón Healdsburg, which seeks to strengthen the Northern Sonoma County community by bridging racial, cultural and economic divides, and has been working in cooperation with Alliance Medical Centers to perform vaccine outreach, education and registration to over 9,000 people since mid-February. The group’s efforts have resulted in 3,000 vaccine appointments, and Corazón continues to focus on vaccine equity.
●    Reach for Home, a Healdsburg-based nonprofit with the goal of ending homelessness in Sonoma County, provides street outreach and medicine, rapid rehousing, permanent supportive housing, COVID and vaccine outreach and education.
●    YWCA Sonoma County is dedicated to eliminating racism, empowering women and promoting peace. The local organization’s overarching goal is to end domestic violence (DV) in Sonoma County, which unfortunately rose sharply during shelter-in-place. The YWCA provides Sonoma County’s only confidential safe house and therapeutic pre-school, DV-specialized mental health and advocacy services.
●    Farm to Pantry, whose mission is to end food waste and hunger by gleaning excess produce, has continued to deliver many tons of fresh produce every week to those in the community facing food insecurity, in spite of pandemic-related drop in volunteers and increased staff costs.
●    Farm to Fight Hunger, an organization that grows vegetables and produces pasture-raised eggs for donation to those in need of food in Sonoma County, serves predominantly Latinx and low-income community members.
●    Food for Thought, which aims to foster health and healing with food and compassion, launched a program to serve low-income Sonoma County residents who have been diagnosed with COVID-19.