A new foundation with a well-known health care sponsor has been formed in Centralia to deal with two major health care issues.
Sister Clarette of the Felician Sisters says the St. Clare Foundation is their new way of meeting their commitment to care for the people of Centralia which started with their sponsorship of St. Mary’s Hospital in 1939.
“Drug abuse and mental health,” Clarette said. “The Felician Sisters have made a commitment to begin the establishment of the St. Clare Foundation for the purpose, with your help as community members, to change the trajectory of these two very difficult situations that families and individuals are dealing with on an ongoing basis.”
Clarette says the foundation is a novel concept which she believes can make a difference if they work with everyone in the community.
“We had to make a choice; do we continue to be a provider? And we said, we can now step back. We can step back because of our twenty plus years working with the SSM healthcare system, who have kept our joint mission alive, so we feel very comfortable in saying it’s time for us to move on.”
The foundation will be led by Executive Director Clare Kessler. She says they plan to address the two issues by awarding grants to non-profit groups involved directly with youth 5 to 18 years old to expand to address unmet needs.
“A lot of great organizations are doing a lot of great work already in this space,” Kessler said. “We want to be that back end bringing them together, facilitating conversation and facilitating new projects or programs. Beyond that, we really want to be catalyst for systemic change. Not just putting a band-aid on the issues, but trying to get to the root cause and use this funding and this ability to convene organizations to make some real systemic change.”
The first grant application cycle is coming in January.
Clarette feels they will accomplish their mission if they can address drug abuse and mental health issues before there is need for care in a medical facility.
The foundation is located at 420 North Pleasant Street, Suite B.
