For Immediate Release
CONTACT:
Traci Messier
Jackson Spalding
404.214.3596
East Lake Foundation Creates East Lake Healthy Connections
Grant from Atlanta’s Jesse Parker Williams Foundation Makes
Comprehensive Health and Wellness Pilot Possible
ATLANTA, March 11, 2014 – A grant from an Atlanta foundation focused on providing access to healthcare services for women and children will allow the East Lake Foundation to better serve East Lake residents in the areas of health and wellness. The East Lake Healthy Connections program will launch later this year.
After a 2010 health scan (later updated in 2013) conducted by the Mosaic Group found that a comprehensive health initiative was lacking in the community, the East Lake Foundation created the East Lake Healthy Connections program to address this concern.
The rollout of the program has been made possible through a grant from the Jesse Parker Williams Foundation. The $932,851 three-year grant will help ensure that all eligible families currently served by the East Lake Foundation and its partners are enrolled in health insurance programs, connected to accessible medical homes (a team-based healthcare delivery model that provides comprehensive and continuous care with the goal of obtaining maximized health outcomes), and able to appropriately utilize primary and preventive healthcare services.
“Jesse Parker Williams Foundation is pleased to support the East Lake Foundation’s efforts to improve health and wellness in the East Lake community by supporting the establishment of the East Lake Healthy Connections Program,” said Mary Judson, executive director of the Jesse Parker Williams Foundation. “With its impressive record of success in implementing programs and fostering strong partnerships in the East Lake community, the East Lake Foundation is well positioned to launch this important new initiative. We look forward to partnering with the staff of the East Lake Foundation.”
The East Lake Foundation’s greatest successes have been in its efforts to develop and sustain its mixed income housing, cradle-to-college education pipeline, and community wellness efforts. This new program will fill a vital community need.
“East Lake Healthy Connections will allow the East Lake Foundation to strengthen its existing community wellness efforts by focusing on health,” explained Daniel Shoy, Jr., president of the East Lake Foundation. “We are thrilled to partner with the Jesse Parker Williams Foundation and learn with them through the work this generous grant will support.”
East Lake Healthy Connections will build on and expand existing relationships with healthcare providers, schools, early learning centers, the YMCA and residents of East Lake. A program coordinator with a health background and three family health advocates will staff the project and maintain relationships with project partners who provide important resources. The goals of the program will be to:
- Assist East Lake families in enrolling their children in the CHIP/PeachCare program, and adults in any health insurance programs for which they are eligible.
- Assist East Lake families in selecting and making contact with a new medical home.
- Teach East lake families how to establish and best use a medical home.
- Educate East Lake families caring for children or adults with diabetes, hypertension, or asthma on effective disease management.
- Ensure East Lake youth receive vision screening.
The program is expected to roll out in the second quarter of 2014.
About the East Lake Foundation
Founded in 1995 on the belief that everyone deserves a chance to succeed, the East Lake Foundation (www.eastlakefoundation.org) collaborates with public and private organizations to provide tools that enable Atlanta’s East Lake residents to build a better future through its model for community revitalization. The East Lake model includes cradle-to-college education at Charles R. Drew Charter School and its early learning partners, mixed-income housing at The Villages of East Lake and community wellness through programs including The First Tee® of East Lake, the East Lake Community Learning Garden and Urban Farm and a partnership with the East Lake YMCA. This approach to building a strong community not only helps break the cycle of poverty, but creates a place where people of all ages and incomes choose to live. East Lake has become a model for integrated community revitalization programs across the country.
About the Jesse Parker Williams Foundation
The mission of the Jesse Parker Williams Foundation is to support highly effective organizations that emphasize preventative, comprehensive health opportunities and enhance access to health services for women and children. It focuses especially on those serving populations with limited financial means and predominately in the five-county metropolitan Atlanta area (Fulton, DeKalb, Cobb, Gwinnett and Clayton.)
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