BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina Foundation Awards 14 Health Priority Grants to South Carolina Organizations

The BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina Foundation has awarded 14 grants in the spring of 2019 to organizations working to improve the health of South Carolina’s economically vulnerable citizens.

Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation – Introduce the Kids in Parks program to South Carolina, converting ten trails to TRACK trails and working with 20 doctors’ offices to prescribe these trails to patients, increasing physical activity for children and families. (2 years)

Boys & Girls Clubs of the Crescent Region – Expand the reach of the Triple Play program to an additional ten rural and underserved counties in South Carolina to provide a safe place for children to remain active and engaged after school. (3 years)

Carolina Community Care Inc. – Repurpose, repair and make available durable medical equipment through a reuse program for low-income residents.  (1 year)

Communities in Schools of the Charleston Area, Inc. – Support in-school coordinators at two elementary schools in Charleston County, as well as expand to two additional schools in another school district, to connect students to needed resources to address their social determinants of health and remove barriers that affect their classroom success and long term health. (3 years)

Epworth Children’s Home – Provide mental health counseling as part of a new counseling center in Columbia, as well as satellite sites in the Pee Dee and Charleston, to increase accessibility of mental health services. (3 years)

Impact America – South Carolina – Provide free vision screenings to low income children ages six months to five years using high tech digital cameras and conduct a feasibility study to better understand the landscape of vision screenings in public schools. (3 years)

NAMI of South Carolina – Expand Ending the Silence training statewide to middle and high school students, school staff and parents/caregivers to increase awareness around behavioral health issues for South Carolina teens and connect students to needed behavioral health services. (3 years)

Pendleton Place – Address the health care needs of low-income families who are involved or at risk of becoming involved in the foster care system through a partnership with Access Health Greenville/Laurens. (3 years)

South Carolina Community Loan Fund – Expand the Feeding Innovation healthy food business incubator to additional communities, as well as provide technical assistance and support to past and future Feeding Innovation alumni to increase healthy food access across the state. (3 years)

South Carolina Department of Mental Health – Embed mental health clinicians with law enforcement in five communities to respond to the needs of communities, families and children faced with trauma, allowing for early intervention and mitigation of longer term mental health issues. (3 years)

South Carolina Network of Children’s Advocacy Centers – Provide support and technical assistance to member CACs, as well as put into action the recommendations of the SCNCAC 2018 Development Plan in order to increase statewide CAC coverage to support child victims of abuse. (5 years)

University of South Carolina Aiken School of Nursing – Establish nursing simulation labs at USC Sumter and USC Union, to support the new Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) programs at each campus. (1 year)

University of South Carolina Arnold School of Public Health (Core for Applied Research & Evaluation) - Support the planning and design of a statewide learning collaborative on addressing social determinants of health. (9 months)

Welvista – Improve medication adherence of uninsured patients by removing the barriers of prescription cost and transportation.   (1 year)

Headquartered in Columbia, the Foundation is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. Its mission is to promote and support healthier South Carolinians, particularly the economically vulnerable, by supporting solutions to address gaps in health care and serving as an agent of change to support innovation and value-added public-private partnerships.