CentraCare Health Foundation averages more than $100,000 per year in grants to improve health throughout Central Minnesota. The Foundation’s grants support projects that promote health education, conduct research or provide services or programs that improve health and health care for residents of our 13-county region. View service area map

• How to Apply for a Grant
• Community Grants
• Community Programs

Community Grants
The acronym CARE represents the four categories that make up our grant program: Clinical, Advocacy, Research and Education.

Clinical Grant Examples:
- $1,000 to fund a bone marrow drive in which potential bone marrow recipients are unrelated to the donors.
- $23,500 for start-up funding to implement the Hear First newborn hearing screening program in St. Cloud Hospital and 5 rural hospitals in Central Minnesota.

Advocacy Grant Examples:
- $8,000 to establish the Helmet Smart program. This program promotes injury prevention to children in kindergarten through sixth grade, and makes safety equipment available at a reduced cost for families and children.
- $3,000 to fund an automatic blood pressure screening device for seniors at the Whitney Senior Center in St. Cloud. The equipment makes it possible for seniors to monitor their blood pressure on a daily basis.

Research Grant Examples:
- $9,900 to fund the "Next Step" program to study the effects of an alternative approach to weight reduction in patients who are at extreme risk for heart disease due to their weight.
- $2,600 to aid physicians in a comprehensive research project to study how genetics relates to the occurrence of stillbirths.

Education Grant Examples:
- $3,000 to the local Girl Scouts organization to support a sexual assault education program. The Girl Scouts also received a grant of $5,000 to send senior scouts to a "Kick Butts" tobacco cessation training program. The senior scouts were then required to utilize their training and share information with junior scouts and brownies.
- $7000 to fund the Central Minnesota teen tobacco cessation conference. This event brought key stakeholders from 11 communities together to identify existing community efforts and to "fill in the gaps" required for a comprehensive community tobacco-reduction effort.

Community Program
CentraCare Health Foundation has coordinated and funded special community projects that have had a positive impact on our area. These include the following:

• BELTT - Businesses Educators Law Enforcement & Teens Together
  Partners of the award-winning BELTT program promote the use of seatbelts through awareness building activities. Efforts of the program have resulted in a 20 percent increase in seatbelt use among target groups.
• Helmet Smart – This program’s goal is to reduce and help prevent head injuries by raising awareness about the importance of wearing safety helmets.
• Youth Tobacco Cessation – The Foundation hosted a workshop with 11 communities to explore efforts to reduce youth tobacco use and make youth cessation programs readily available.
• Children Exposed to Violence Initiative (CEVI) – The Children Exposed to Violence Initiative is a collaborative project that provides assessment and referrals for children and families seeking shelter at Anna Marie House. Anna Marie House is a women and children's shelter serving nine counties in Central Minnesota. The purpose of the CEVI project is to test a model that assesses children for the effects of violence on their cognitive, social, physical/nutritional and behavioral development. Additionally, it is hoped that this assessment will allow for identifying those children who are in the most urgent need of intervention in any of the assessed areas.

A 30-member Community Collaboration Committee representing Central Minnesota selects our community programs. Decisions are driven by a variety of data sources, including the Minnesota Department of Health, Minnesota Department of Public Safety, Minnesota student surveys and local community concerns.

For more information about any of these programs, please contact CentraCare Health Foundation.