Health First Awards More Than $360,000 in Wellness Grants to 12 Community Partners

Health First grants are intended to be enterprising and invite expansive thinking

Strategic partnerships with nonprofits expand core mission – wellness and health in the community.

BREVARD COUNTY, FLORIDA – Health First this month made substantial Wellness Grants to 12 community partners totaling more than $360,000.

“We are very excited to award these wellness grants to our community partners,” said Paula Just, Chief Experience Officer with Health First.

“By working together, we can make real strides toward improving the wellness of our entire community.”

“These grants are intended to be enterprising and invite expansive thinking,” shared Michael Seeley, President, Health First Foundation.

“The grants are aimed at growing the capacity of a range of nonprofits who all have one thing in common: improving wellness for the underserved in our community. We want to challenge these organizations to ask themselves, ‘What’s possible? What would happen if . . .?’ and give them additional resources to make that possible.”

The grants are directed by the Community Health Improvement Committee, a group comprised of Health First leaders across the system, who evaluated and approved applications with an eye toward improving the wellness and health disparities in our community.

On Tuesday, Just, Seeley and others from Health First visited with a few of the nonprofits who are among the 12 awarded.

WAYS FOR LIFE

Executive Director Pamela Bress and Katie Stewart, Wraparound Services Coordinator, accepted the honor on behalf of WAYS for Life Brevard, which identifies and facilitates a number of needs and services for youth in transition, ages 15 to 25, most of whom have aged out of foster care or are experiencing homelessness.

“I first became a member when I was homeless back in the middle of COVID,” said former client Ashleigh Balser. “They helped me find housing. They helped me with my mental health. They helped me get into therapy – practically psychiatric services. And they also helped me with legal services.”

WAYS for Life also encouraged her to get her GED, a daunting prospect at first. Today, she is a Youth Services Specialist.

“So I decided to give up hope a little bit at the beginning. Not really study that hard. Not really meet with the tutors. But in the end, when they kept on telling me that I had potential and I was bright and that they would help me … it was very reassuring.”

Reassuring is the sentiment Stewart expressed.

“I’m in tears, really, for our members,” she said. “Our members are really incredible in the community and have so much to give, and they just need that opportunity. They need someone to stand up and recognize their voices, and say, ‘You know what, we see you. You’re valued.’”

“This grant gives us the opportunity to say to our members, ‘It’s not just us! It’s Health First!’ Other really important people in the community are stepping forward. They’re saying, ‘We believe in you!’”

SLED HOCKEY

A much smaller organization – the Space Coast Blast sled hockey team – also benefited from a substantial grant.

“Coming out of COVID, there was a lot of concern that the program was going to struggle,” said Shawn Eising, a Space Coast Blast coach and father.

“Our team is funded completely through volunteerism and community support. Our biggest cost throughout the year is our ice time. Something like this [gives us] hope that we’re going to survive and continue to be able to offer individuals with disabilities an opportunity to play competitive sports.”

“Before this, I never got to play sports and have that kind of team comradery, have brothers on and off the field, or the ice, in this case,” said Beau Corbett of Cocoa, a defenseman. “It’s let me surround myself with people who have similar struggles as me, makes it easier to talk to them about it, figure things out.”

Two local sled hockey players were invited by the U.S. National Team to play in the Czech Republic, Corbett said. And now he is eyeing an opportunity to play in the Paralympics. At the last tryouts, he played in the top-tier game, generally the showcase event for would-be National Team members.

“I mean, before all this, I was dealing with disabilities and thought, ‘Woe is me,’ and everything, but then I meet all these other people with disabilities who are dealing with them fine, and I thought, ‘Why can’t that be me?’”

STREETSIDE SHOWERS

John Adams and Lance Olinski from the mobile nonprofit Streetside Showers said that the grant award from Health First could double their capacity to deliver hot showers, toiletries, clothes and food to area homeless by way of the mobile unit.

“Everybody feels better after a shower,” Olinski said. “So if we can provide a shower, help with some underwear, with socks, clean clothes, maybe that encourages them to take the next step to get a job – to, you know, mend a relationship or try to find housing. That’s a big deal.”

Olinski said the group has counted more than 25,000 showers at stops from Palm Bay to Titusville. Now, it’s going to add stops and services.

“We want to help our county.”

FY2023 WELLNESS GRANTS

Wellness Grants focus on addressing the disparities identified in the Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA), which is completed every three years in partnership with the Space Coast Health Foundation. The most recent CHNA 2022 identified access to healthcare and physical activity and nutrition of children as our community health focus areas.

The community partners approved for an FY23 Wellness Grant are:

■ 211 Brevard
■ Boys & Girls Club (Brevard clubs)
■ Brevard Public Schools
■ Complementary Cancer Care
■ Junior League of the Space Coast
■ Family Promise of Brevard
■ Promise in Brevard
■ South Brevard Sharing Center
■ Space Coast Sled Hockey
■ Streetside Showers
■ WAYS for Life Brevard
■ Who We Play For

Visit HF.org/news to find out what’s happening at Health First.

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