News Releases

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DATE: June 27, 2005
For more information, contact: Virginia Elliott, Vice President for Programs, 620-662-8586

United Methodist Health Ministry Fund awards over $175,000 in new grants

Hutchinson, KS—The United Methodist Health Ministry Fund announces new grants totaling over $175,000 for projects to improve the health of Kansans. The Health Fund grants an average of nearly $3 million each year to support health projects in its three strategic focus areas: access to health care, oral health, and healthy nutrition and exercise.

The Sedgwick County Health Department is the recipient of a $25,176 grant to expand its Children’s Dental Clinic. The clinic will add a third dental chair and needed equipment. The Children’s Dental Clinic, providing free dental care to children who lack insurance, was established in 1975. It provides free dental care to more than 500 new clients each year.

A $60,000 grant to the Kansas Area Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies (KACCRRA), Salina, will support continued child care provider training in oral health for young children. Quality Training Incentive Project—Oral Health or QTIP-OH was started last year with a grant from the Health Fund and provided 63 training workshops for child care providers. The new grant will enable the organization to offer at least 48 additional workshops statewide. Workshop participants receive oral health supplies and materials, such as toothbrushes, children’s books on oral health, and tooth-friendly cookbooks. These items have been popular, according to project director Lana Messner. “Over 70 percent of the grant goes to purchase these materials,” she said, “so it is a real commitment to helping child care professionals integrate oral health into the child’s day.”

Legacy, a Regional Community Foundation located in Winfield, will expand its Tiny Teeth oral health education program with a $39,360 grant. Started with an earlier Health Fund grant to coordinate oral health awareness and education among Cowley County agencies serving young children, Tiny Teeth will be made available statewide for agencies serving infants and toddlers with developmental delays. These 36 Kansas agencies provide services to more than 5,000 children each year. Rebecca Scott, the Tiny Teeth program coordinator, said the program’s aim is prevention. “Waiting until children start school is often too late to avoid serious oral disease,” explained Scott. “Children with developmental delays are at even greater risk of having problems with their teeth. Tiny-K equips parents and service providers of young children with tools for developing a lifetime of oral health, an essential component of oral health.”

United Methodist Western Kansas Mexican-American Ministries (UMWKMAM), Garden City, has been awarded a grant of $22,262 to continue and expand its Lifetime Smiles program. This program, started in part with a grant from the Health Fund, screens school children for oral disease, provides assistance with needed dental care, and raises awareness about the need for oral health. The new grant will expand oral health education and disease prevention to serve clients of the medical clinics. Penney Schwab, director of UMWKMAM, said only about 20 percent of patients seen at the clinics have dental insurance. “That means they do without treatment until there is an urgent need,” said Schwab. “Prevention is really the key. We want to start with our prenatal patients and children to give them a good foundation for oral health.”

A grant of $20,000 will go to the Kansas Association for the Medically Underserved (KAMU) to support staffing and training for the Director of Community Development position. The director will be responsible for providing technical assistance to safety net clinics expanding services to include dental care.

The St. Mark United Methodist Church, Wichita, has been awarded a $5,000 Healthy Congregations grant to help expand its health ministry programs to serve the congregation and community. Grant funding will be used to purchase medical equipment, educational materials, and other health ministry resources. The grant project director is Shaunta James-Boyd, and the pastor of St. Mark UMC is the Rev. Junius Dotson.

First United Methodist Church, Pittsburg, receives a $4,114 Healthy Congregations grant to help expand their parish nurse program. Grant funding will be used to purchase a computer, blood glucose monitor, and other health ministry resources. The project director is Cheryl Carlson and the pastor of First UMC Pittsburg is the Rev. Tom Sims.

Under the Health Fund’s Healthy Congregations initiative, start-up grants of up to $5,000 are available to local United Methodist churches to stimulate the development of comprehensive congregational health and wellness ministries. It is the hope of the Health Fund that these one-time grants, added to local church resources, will mobilize strong volunteer efforts to address many facets of health, healing, and wholeness in congregations and communities throughout Kansas.

Based in Hutchinson, the mission of the United Methodist Health Ministry Fund is “Healthy Kansans through cooperative and strategic philanthropy guided by Christian principles.” Its funding comes from an endowment established in 1986 by the Kansas West Conference of the United Methodist Church from a portion of the proceeds from the sale of Wesley Hospital in Wichita. Since the Health Fund’s founding, grants totaling more than $39 million have supported hundreds of health-related projects in Kansas.

Additional information about the Health Fund is available by calling the United Methodist Health Ministry Fund in Hutchinson at (620) 662-8586, or by visiting the Health Fund’s website: http://www.healthfund.org

-30-