Grants Totaling More Than $585,000 Will Benefit Children
ROME, Ga., Sept. 26, 2024 – Atrium Health Floyd-Polk Foundation is making a difference in our community.
Earlier this month, the Foundation awarded 33 grants valued at $1.3 million to area not-for-profits that already are making a positive difference in northwest Georgia and northeast Alabama. One-third of those grants, amounting to more than $585,000, were awarded to agencies that focus on children.
There are sobering reasons for that.
Today about 650,000 children in Georgia live in poverty. Nearly 400,000 Georgia children struggle with hunger, and more than 11,000 children in Georgia are in foster care. Nearly 7,100 children were born to mothers under the age of 20. About 18.5% of high school students have seriously considered suicide in the past 12 months.
The Foundation board saw need and responded with an opportunity to invest in the next generation.
Those grants would not have been possible were it not for the vision of the men and women who recognized the future of Floyd Medical Center was dependent on partnering with a larger health care provider.
Despite excellent financials and years of impactful process improvements and waste reductions, these leaders saw that even successful community hospitals faced an uncertain future.
They sought out partners, eventually settling on Atrium Health. As part of the strategic combination deal, the cash corpus would be invested and the Atrium Health Floyd-Polk Foundation would be created to distribute the dividends to agencies that would improve health, elevate hope and advance healing.
This was an opportunity to effect real change. Those funds, totaling nearly $200 million, could be used to address disparities of care and to address social determinants of health right here in northwest Georgia and northeast Alabama.
Now, 12 agencies that are specifically focused on the next generation are receiving assistance from the Foundation to accomplish their goals. This is good work.
A Teen's Choice helps high school seniors navigate college applications and financial aid, develop leadership skills and conducts mental wellness groups.
Bloom Our Youth focuses on the unique needs of foster children, helping them to achieve, in their words, “their God-given potential."
Boys and Girls Clubs have implemented Project Learn to create high-yield learning activities that develop young people's cognitive skills. The project also emphasizes parent involvement as well as collaboration between Club and school professionals.
The Child and Senior Advocacy Foundation ensures children's fundamental needs are met throughout the year.
The Children's Advocacy Center of Cherokee County seeks to provide a safe, child-friendly facility where victims of child abuse can receive specialized services.
The Exchange Club Family Resource Center provides in-home education and support to families, helping them to create safe, stable and nurturing homes where children can grow and thrive.
The Family Crisis Center provides a peaceful and secure refuge for families in crisis to allow them to begin healing from their trauma.
The Youth Mental Health Initiative will place Positive Action curriculum bundles in elementary schools and middle schools for 1,800 students. The curriculum equips students with essential life skills and covers such topics and self-concept to responsible decision-making.
The Tar Wars early prevention tobacco and vaping education and prevention program is offered to students by the Georgia Healthy Family Alliance at no cost to Georgia schools. The program educates elementary students about the dangerous health effects of tobacco and vape use, the costs associated with using tobacco products, and the effective advertising and messaging techniques used by the tobacco/e-cigarette industry to market its products to youth.
The Open Door Home, which provides emergency and extended care for youth from circumstances that may include neglect, abandonment, sexual abuse, physical abuse, lack of supervision, truancy, lack of appropriate living arrangements or absence of parents. The organization plans to use its grant to specifically help these children and adolescents access quality health care.
The Rebecca Blaylock Child Development Center provides a low-cost, secure and private learning environment with individualized instruction.
Restoration Rome plans to use its grant to provide trust-based relational interventions for children who have experienced adversity, early harm, toxic stress, and/or trauma.
There is an African proverb made famous by Hilary Clinton that states, “It takes a village to raise a child." Atrium Health Floyd-Polk Foundation is part of that village. Investing in children and adolescents is central to our mission. These young people may well be the health care providers of tomorrow. They will be the workforce, the parents, the educators and the patient population that takes us into the second half of the 21st century.
Atrium Health Floyd Medical Center has an 82-year history of being a positive influence in the communities we serve. The work of the Atrium Health Floyd-Polk Foundation amplifies that legacy into one that will impact generations to come in a way that otherwise may never have been possible.
About Atrium Health Floyd
The Atrium Health Floyd family of health care services is a leading medical provider and economic force in northwest Georgia and northeast Alabama. Atrium Health Floyd is part of Charlotte, North Carolina-based Advocate Health, the third-largest nonprofit health system in the United States, created from the combination of Atrium Health and Advocate Aurora Health. Atrium Health Floyd employs more than 3,500 teammates who provide care in over 40 medical specialties at three hospitals: Atrium Health Floyd Medical Center – a 304-bed full-service, acute care hospital and regional referral center in Rome, Georgia; Atrium Health Floyd Polk Medical Center in Cedartown, Georgia; and Atrium Health Floyd Cherokee Medical Center in Centre, Alabama; as well as Atrium Health Floyd Medical Center Behavioral Health – a freestanding 53-bed behavioral health facility in Rome – and also primary care and urgent care network locations throughout northwest Georgia and northeast Alabama. Atrium Health Floyd also operates a stand-alone emergency department in Chattooga County, the first such facility to be built from the ground-up in Georgia.
About Atrium Health
Atrium Health is a nationally recognized leader in shaping health outcomes through innovative research, education and compassionate patient care. Based in Charlotte, North Carolina, Atrium Health is part of Advocate Health, the third-largest nonprofit health system in the United States, which was created from the combination with Advocate Aurora Health. A recognized leader in experiential medical education and groundbreaking research, Wake Forest University School of Medicine is its academic core. Atrium Health is renowned for its top-ranked pediatric, cancer and heart care, as well as organ transplants, burn treatments and specialized musculoskeletal programs. Atrium Health is also a leading-edge innovator in virtual care and mobile medicine, providing care close to home and in the home. Ranked nationally among U.S. News & World Report's Best Hospitals in eight pediatric specialties and for rehabilitation, Atrium Health has also received the American Hospital Association's Quest for Quality Prize and its 2021 Carolyn Boone Lewis Equity of Care Award, as well as the 2020 Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Health Equity Award for its efforts to reduce racial and ethnic disparities in care. With a commitment to every community it serves, Atrium Health seeks to improve health, elevate hope and advance healing – for all, providing $2.8 billion last year in free and uncompensated care and other community benefits.
About Advocate Health
Advocate Health is the third-largest nonprofit integrated health system in the United States – created from the combination of Advocate Aurora Health and Atrium Health. Providing care under the names Advocate Health Care in Illinois, Atrium Health in the Carolinas, Georgia and Alabama, and Aurora Health Care in Wisconsin, Advocate Health is a national leader in clinical innovation, health outcomes, consumer experience and value-based care. Headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, Advocate Health services nearly 6 million patients and is engaged in hundreds of clinical trials and research studies, with Wake Forest University School of Medicine serving as the academic core of the enterprise. It is nationally recognized for its expertise in cardiology, neurosciences, oncology, pediatrics and rehabilitation, as well as organ transplants, burn treatments and specialized musculoskeletal programs. Advocate Health employs 155,000 teammates across 69 hospitals and over 1,000 care locations, and offers one of the nation's largest graduate medical education programs with over 2,000 residents and fellows across more than 200 programs. Committed to providing equitable care for all, Advocate Health provides nearly $6 billion in annual community benefits.