The potential of the average person is like a huge ocean unsailed, a new continent unexplored, a world of possibilites waiting to be released and channeled toward some great good.                          -  Brian Tracy

Joseph Matteucci Foundation
What’s Up With Guns
What’s Up With Guns (WUWG) is a gun education and prevention program developed for school assemblies. WUWG tells a compelling story about a teen that uses his parents’ gun to kill a student at school. The wide-reaching effects of his actions, as well as how those involved could have prevented the tragedy, are covered in great detail. The program comes with a teacher’s companion piece for further classroom discussion. The grant allows the Foundation to translate all materials to Spanish to broaden this violence-prevention effort to a wider audience.
Grant Award: $5,000

 

Alameda County Public Health Immunization Project
Eden Area Immunization Registry Project
This program is involved in implementing a computerized, confidential immunization registry for children and youth, with the goal to catalog and provide immediate access to a person’s immunization history. Its purpose is to create a single, population-based data source for all healthcare providers in the region. IAP has focused on enrolling clinics and private practices that serve large numbers of children at high risk for under-immunization. The grant allows the program to extend registry participation to Silva Pediatric Clinic and to the Family Resource Center. These three sites see large numbers of low-income children in the Hayward area. The children they see also attend public schools in Hayward. The registry links the medical providers with the schools to provide one current immunization record for each child, assist parents through sending reminder/recall notices, and assist school nurses and parents in complying with state immunization laws.
Grant Award: $25,000

 

Spectrum Community Services 05-008
Fall Prevention Skill Building for Eden Area Seniors
Spectrum Community Services assists low-income, disadvantaged and elderly residents of Alameda County as they attempt to achieve and maintain self-sufficiency and improve the overall quality of their lives. The Community Health Fund has helped create the Fall Prevention and Skill Building Program for frail, low-income elderly in the Eden Township Healthcare District. Falls are the number one cause of trauma-related injuries among the senior population, contribute substantially to health care costs and trigger repeated hospital admissions. The program combines a strength-building exercise regime with minor home modification and education to reduce the number of falls among participating seniors and increase the perceived sense of control that they have over their independence.
Grant Award: $65,000

 

Davis Street Family Resource Center
Eden Wellness Project
The Community Health Fund has helped create the Ashland/Eden Wellness Project, with a goal to enhance health and livelihood of Ashland and Eden area residents and their families through access to health services, nutrition education, life skills training and nutritious food, fostering the creation and sustainability of a vital, self-sufficient and productive life for disenfranchised and impoverished persons. The Community Health Fund has also helped improve the basic-need services through nutrition education and life skills training that teach low-income individuals about menu planning, food budgeting, safety and goal-setting efforts to establish and maintain a healthier lifestyle for themselves and their children.
Grant Award: $75,000

 

Building Futures with Women and Children
Emergency Shelter and Supportive Services for Homeless and Battered Women and Children
Two emergency shelters were opened in the Eden Township Healthcare District to aid homeless and battered women and children: the San Leandro Shelter and the Sister Me Home Safe House. Because there are so few emergency shelters located within the Eden Township Healthcare District, the demand for beds is very high. For every 10 women who call needing a safe place to stay, only one can be accommodated. The grant helped enhance program services including adult case management, mental health counseling, group counseling, therapeutic children’s play activities, peer support groups, health assessments for children and child case management.
Grant Award: $20,000

 

The Kids Breakfast Club
Nutrition Plus
Since 1992 The Kids’ Breakfast Club has worked to provide a child, family and community network that promotes the health and wellness of children and their families through specific activities that foster physical, social and intellectual growth. The scope of their program has expanded to include parent education workshops, health services through screenings and referrals, a literacy component and a daily arts and crafts program. The Community Health Fund has helped the program to reach more children in the Eden Township Healthcare District.
Grant Award: $20,000

 

Christmas in April
Home Rebuilding in ETHD
Christmas in April’s program is centered on National Rebuilding Day, which is the last Saturday in April. The program’s mission is to provide a free service to those who cannot afford to make much-needed repairs on their homes, allowing families to live in a safe and clean environment. The Community Health Fund has helped renovate homes for low-income seniors and disabled homeowners as part of a larger effort for residents in Castro Valley, San Lorenzo, San Leandro and Hayward.
Grant Award: $5,000

 

Mercy Brown Bag Program
Mercy Brown Bag Program’s mission is to coordinate the distribution of high quality, nutritionally balanced, bags of groceries to low-income seniors age 60 and over, in Alameda County. The Community Health Fund has helped establish food distribution sites in the Eden Township Healthcare District to serve at least 80 low-income seniors, primarily those underserved residents of Cherryland, Ashland and Fairview. Because of the Community Health Fund, the program has found a new distribution site at the Davis Street Community Center in San Leandro, merged with another brown bag program and expanded its reach in the District.
Grant Award: $15,000

 

San Leandro Boys & Girls Club
Hesperian and Hillside Unit After School Program
The San Leandro Boys & Girls Club invests in the future of youth by providing programs and opportunities that nurture their capacity to become self-sufficient, responsible and fulfilled members of the community. The goal is that all Club programs and services promote and enhance the development of boys and girls by instilling a sense of competence, usefulness, belonging and influence. The Hillside branch offers more than 300 youth of unincorporated San Leandro a place with educational, recreational and youth development activities. The youth in this area have limited access to recreation – no library, recreation center nor park within walking distance. The Community Health Fund has helped strengthen and expand services to youth, including the addition of nutritional and health education programs at the Hesperian and Hillside units.
Grant Award: $15,000

 

Greater Hayward Area Recreation and Park District
Ashland Community Center
The Hayward Area Recreation and Park Districts Ashland Community Center is the focal point for many organizations in the community providing access to a variety of programs, classes, resources, services, activities and events for low-income, at-risk residents of Ashland. In 2004 the Ashland Community Center housed 46 programs and events that were attended by over 30,000 residents. These programs support education and youth development through homework and reading programs, recreational activities, art courses, development of leadership skills and participation and interaction in community activities. They support neighborhood and community building by providing a range of services and events in English and Spanish to youth, elderly and low-income residents. These services include an After School Program, senior exercise classes, Brown Bag food distribution, Spring Fling Health Fair, health education classes and much more. The grant has enabled the continued staffing of the center to strengthen the center’s role as a valuable community resource.
Grant Award: $30,000

 

Legal Assistance for Seniors
Eden Outreach Project
With assistance from the Community Health Fund grant, Legal Assistance for Seniors has expanded its community education presentations with the goal of reaching 500 ETHD residents. Residents receive legal services that can indirectly improve their mental well-being, such as reduced stress due to increased income from SSI, assistance gaining guardianship and medical responsibility for young relatives, being removed from an abusive situation, or elimination of a consumer problem. A staff social worker attends community presentations, performs an intake assessment on prospective clients and develops a training module for volunteer HICAP counselors to help them identify other problems that a senior may have.
Grant Award: $25,000

 

The East Bay Cancer Support Group, Inc.
Community Awareness and Expansion of Services
The East Bay Cancer Support Group, a non-profit organization established in 1995, has used the grant funds to provide ongoing evening psychological support and educational services for the estimated 5,800 individuals who will be diagnosed with cancer in Alameda County in 2005. The EBCSG provides eight weekly support groups, free of charge for cancer patients, their loved ones, and the bereaved. Periodic educational seminars are provided for the Adult Patient Group, The Breast Cancer Group and The Adult Caregiving Group. These seminars are co-sponsored by the Cancer Committee at Eden Medical Center. Increased community awareness is needed to provide the general public with information about these services.
Grant Award: $25,000

 

Ombudsman, Inc.
Healthy Purpose
“Healthy Purpose” is an expanded initiative that advances the health and wellness of vulnerable elders residing in long-term care facilities in Castro Valley, San Leandro, Hayward, Ashland and Cherryland. The program establishes collaborations with long-term care facilities located in the Eden Township Healthcare District and provides Educational Outreach and Elder Abuse Prevention services to ensure that the health needs of elders in long term care facilities are met, they receive good information about health care choices and advance directives, and they experience a sense of continued well-being.
Grant Award: $20,000

 

Stepping Stones Growth Center
Steps Toward Wellness
Many individuals with a developmental disability experience numerous medical problems accompanying their primary diagnosis, such as obesity, asthma, diabetes, heart disease, epilepsy, cancers and gastrointestinal disorders. Stepping Stones believes these conditions could be prevented, greatly reduced, and/or stopped from advancement by the Steps Toward Wellness program, funded by the Community Health Fund grant. Steps Toward Wellness addresses quality of life issues by partnering with medical professionals to provide training to staff who run the program. These professionals also present classes directly to participants in this program. The staff uses their expertise in dealing with our clientele to assist them in medication management, nutrition, and health management, including assistance in accessing needed medical care.
Grant Awarded: $25,000

 

La Familia Counseling Service
Healthy Start for Healthy Families
The Healthy Start for Healthy Families, under La Familia Counseling Service as lead agency and the South Hayward Neighborhood Collaborative, provides health and basic needs support, health education workshops, and assists in access to health insurance to low income students and families. These services are provided within the Hayward Unified School District at nine schools sites linked with a community Family Resource Center. Using a model of collaborative service integration, specific services include information and referral, intake assessment, and direct supportive services addressing health needs such as medical, vision/hearing, dental and mental health; basic needs impacting health status, including food shelter, and clothing; health insurance outreach and assistance; educational youth and parent workshops, support groups and other parent-student involvement activities that brings together school/community in an effort to empower all toward healthier environments for children.
Grant Award: $45,000

 

La Clinica de La Raza
San Lorenzo High Health Center Medical Expansion
La Clinica operates the San Lorenzo High Health Center at San Lorenzo High School, providing services to adolescents attending San Lorenzo and Royal Sunset High Schools. Many of the students served by SLHHC have no health insurance, and even more lack a regular source of comprehensive and coordinated primary care services. Without the SLHHC, these students would not have easy access to age-appropriate health and health education services. With this grant, La Clinica has been able to offer increased medical services at SLHHC including providing urgent and first aid care on campus. This expansion has increased access to health care services, including health maintenance, preventive care and health education for underserved youth.
Grant Award: $25,000

 

CALICO
Eden Township Child Abuse & Domestic Violence Intervention and Advocacy Services
CALICO Center is a multidisciplinary interview and coordination center designed to support children, youth and developmentally delayed adults who are victims of sexual and physical abuse. CALICO Center reduces the trauma associated with the child abuse investigation by eliminating repetitive interviewing and coordinating a collaborative response in the best interests of the children. The agency works with various social services groups and law enforcement agencies to reduce trauma to the child involved. The staff consists of a diverse and bilingual group of professionals with the ability to service hearing impaired clients. The grant enables CALICO to broaden services within the Eden Township Healthcare District.
Grant Award: $10,000