During the Verdant Health Commission’s recent funding cycle, the board of commissioners approved more than $2.5 million in grants. These funds will be put directly into South Snohomish County to address community health and well-being needs.
The grants listed below will support 14 different multi-year projects or programs run by 13 organizations, totaling $2.56 million (annual budgets for each project are listed):
- Cascade Bicycle Club – Let’s Go Edmonds bicycle and pedestrian safety education program for youth – $50,000
- Center for Human Services – School-based Youth Counseling Program – $350,000
- Compass Health – Community Transitions Program for mental health support working with the South County Fire Community Paramedic Program – $151,627
- Edmonds College Foundation – Counseling and Resource Center Mental Health Expansion Project – $170,550
- Edmonds School District – Family Resource Advocates – $180,000
- Evergreen Recovery Centers – Bi-directional Integration for Substance Use Disorder (SUD) Treatment Program to support SUD patients’ primary health care needs – $354,400
- Lahai Health – Dental Program for Uninsured/Underinsured – $380,000
- Lahai Health – Mental Health Program for Uninsured/Underinsured – $79,600
- Latino Educational Training Institute (LETI) – Family Success/Promotora (Community Advocates) Program – $88,800
- Project Access Northwest – Specialty Care Coordination Program for Uninsured/Underinsured – $175,000
- Project Girl Mentoring Program – Immersion Lab for young women of color – $157,660 (6-month budget for project expansion)
- Therapeutic Health Services – Integrated Cognitive Therapy Program for youth with co-occurring mental health and substance use needs – $186,149
- UW Bothell, School of Nursing and Health Studies – Behavioral Health Peer Advocate Training Program – $112,760
- Washington Kids in Transition – Distribution Center and Expanded Programming for homeless and low-income youth and families – $125,000
“I am looking forward to the seeing these programs in action as I believe they have the ability to really impact people’s lives,” said Commissioner Bob Knowles, who chairs the Verdant Board of Commissioners. “Many of our residents are struggling right now with accessing the services they need. On behalf of the board of commissioners, I am proud to support these local efforts to reduce barriers to critical services like physical and mental health, and in doing so, strengthen our community.”
This is Verdant’s second round of approved grants in 2021 for its multi-year health programs. The next window for grant applications in this category is Aug. 16-27, 2021.
“We are thankful for the local nonprofits and organizations that support our residents day after day,” Verdant Superintendent Lisa Edwards said. “The work of our grant partners requires dedication and passion for the people here in South Snohomish County, and we are proud to fund these critical services to meet the needs of our communities.”
Verdant will host an online Q&A session to learn more about its next opportunity for submitting grant applications on July 12 at 2 p.m. Find the link to the meeting and learn more on Verdant’s grant web page. In addition to multi-year health program and project applications, Verdant continues to consider requests for funding that are in response to COVID-19 ongoing needs. To be considered for COVID-19 funds, the 2021 COVID-19 Concept Paper is available to download on Verdant’s grant application web page.
Verdant’s Director of Community Impact & Grantmaking Zoe Reese is available to answer questions or discuss ideas that organizations are considering. To reach Zoe, email zoe.reese@verdanthealth.org or call 425-582-8572.
Verdant, aka Snohomish Public Hospital District 2, still collects tax dollars, gets millions in leases from Swedish amd gives it away as though they are doing us a favor. Pandemic spending? Not much. Swedish is a private entity. So, unless they are in your network, you are out of luck ( or pocket). Try as I have, I cannot find how much we are paying the board members. Look the list of how it is being spent. Bike club? Seriously?
Diane has some really good points. For years we paid a tax to create a hospital locally. I would guess other funding happened beside our tax dollars but we were taxed and a hospital was built. With the lease to Swedish we are probably still paying some debt service for the original building but that is likely to be fully funded by the Swedish lease. No information is available on the web site about the financials but it seems logical that we set up the hospital district as just that, build and run a hospital. But the scope of work now seems to have changed along with the excess revenues. Excess in that they are funding things beyond the original mission.
But as a public entity we should be able to better understand why our tax dollars have gone from providing hospital beds to providing grants to as described. The boundaries of the original hospital district are well defined but the grants are going to organization outside the district. Collect inside and spend outside.
Many of us also pay a Port of Edmonds tax. That is also a defined territory but in that case the Port does little or nothing to spend money throughout the district, the taxes collected are spent on a few things only by the waterfront which makes up a very small portion of the District.
For those of us with a form of fixed income with limited increases, it is more and more difficult to keep up with the ever increasing costs, especially taxes.
Thanks Diane for pointing that out. Some one in all this IS getting a “free lunch”. Not wicked humor, just some facts. We need to spend more time looking at how our tax dollars are being spent.
Darrell: here are the budgets for Verdant— https://verdanthealth.org/wp-content/uploads/specialmtgminutes101420.pdf
It looks like they get about $11 million dollars from Swedish and other hospital lease money. They get $2 and half million from the tax dollars. But the levy dollars arent needed anymore because the debt service was paid off in 2020 [look at slide 24] So they keep getting tax dollars but have no debt or bonds to pay off. It also looks like they have $58 MILLION in cash reserves.
What grants that you mention are going outside the district?