The Wellmark Foundation Funds Five Capacity-Building Grants in South Dakota

November 16, 2007

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Contact:
Angela Feig
515.245.4551
feigab@wellmark.com

( Des Moines, Iowa) – The Wellmark Foundation funded five capacity-building grant requests from South Dakota organizations totaling $49,340. The one-year grants are part of the Foundation’s grant program designed to increase the infrastructure and capacity of South Dakota and Iowa organizations to effectively meet long-term community health needs. The following awards were given:

• The Cheyenne River Youth Project in Eagle Butte, S.D., received $10,000 to implement a youth mental health initiative to combat depression. The initiative will focus on empowering youth by encouraging them to contribute to their community. Activities will include a community-wide assessment of youth needs, volunteer and staff training, development of a wellness program and creation of a suicide crisis hotline. The initiative will increase the capacity of the project to serve the community’s youth.

• A $10,000 grant will allow the Huron Regional Medical Center (HRMC) Foundation in Huron, S.D., to conduct a community health needs assessment. The assessment will involve collection, analysis and dissemination of information regarding the health of the community. Areas of focus will include health status, community needs and community assets. Results will be used by local providers to establish priorities for current and future health care services in the community.

• The Lutheran Social Services (LSS) Foundation in Sioux Falls received a $10,000 grant to participate in a medical interpreter training program. LSS staff will complete a “train-the-trainer” course offered by the Cross Cultural Health Care Program and will train fifteen interpreters to serve clients in Sioux Falls health care settings. These efforts will improve communication between refugees and immigrants and their health care providers, ultimately improving health outcomes in these populations.

• The Sanford School of Medicine of the University of South Dakota was awarded a $9,750 grant for LifeCircle South Dakota (SD) to develop a Sioux Falls-area palliative care resource directory. The tool will increase community and constituency awareness of palliative care services, programs and funding. The directory will allow LifeCircle SD, a coalition dedicated to improving South Dakotans care at the end of life, to identify service gaps and develop strategies to meet these needs.

• The Sioux Falls Area Community Foundation was awarded $9,590 to implement an information technology improvement project for its Growing Healthy Initiative (GHI). Through development of a more dynamic, interactive Web site, GHI will increase the number of South Dakotans who receive understandable information on nutrition, fitness and health. GHI promotes health information, resources and best practices to reduce or prevent pediatric obesity and subsequent diseases.

The Wellmark Foundation has provided $2,003,258 to 65 health-related grants in Iowa and South Dakota during 2007, including a total of $154,083 approved during this capacity-building grant cycle. Visit The Wellmark Foundation’s Web site at www.wellmark.com/foundation for instructions on how to apply for a grant and a list of previous grant recipients.

The Wellmark Foundation is a private, non-profit foundation and an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association.