Healthy People Funded Partners Announced
Foundation for a Healthy St. Petersburg and Orlando Health Bayfront Hospital Award $750,000 in Grant Funding
4 multi-sector collaborations received grants to improve health in South St. Petersburg
(St. Petersburg, Fla.) – The Foundation for a Healthy St. Petersburg and Orlando Health Bayfront Hospital have joined forces to drive meaningful change through grantmaking. The two announced today that, through their collaborative Healthy People grant program, they have awarded $750,000 in funding to four multi-sector collaborations working to remove barriers to health in south St. Petersburg.
While much progress has been made to improve community health in recent years, inequalities remain. The Foundation’s recent South St. Pete Health Equity Profile revealed significant disparities for South St. Petersburg compared with Pinellas County as a whole in a variety of indicators that shape health outcomes – including economic opportunity, food access, neighborhood safety, and more.
“We’re excited to fund four incredible collaborations poised to make meaningful changes that improve the lives and health of our fellow community members,” said Dr. Kanika Tomalin, President and CEO of the Foundation for a Healthy St. Petersburg. “From family-sustaining jobs to trauma-informed mental health services for kids to safe and healthy homes stocked with nutritious foods, these funded projects will move us closer to creating a community in which good health helps all people thrive.”
Health Equity Action Through Relational Transformation (HEART), led by St. Petersburg College Foundation in collaboration with Evara Health, Pinellas Opportunity Council, St. Pete Housing Authority, Digital Education Foundation, and Collective Empowerment Group of Tampa Bay: This collaboration offers wrap-around services and high-demand job training for underemployed residents to get them into family-sustaining careers, with an emphasis on lasting employment. It also features grassroots recruitment efforts, a strong education and training component, and collaboration with different partners to connect community members with available health resources. ($125,000)
Home Resilient and Ready Collective, led by Pinellas County Urban League in collaboration with the City of St. Petersburg, James Insurance Solutions, Seacoast Bank, Deuces Live, Pinellas Opportunity Council, and HDR: This collaboration seeks to improve neighborhood housing quality and resilience in south St. Petersburg. It addresses substandard housing conditions and environmental risks that contribute to poor health outcomes, improving residential safety by combining data-driven assessments with direct interventions. Through the grant, the collaboration will assess neighborhood environmental risks, make material improvements to 20 homes, and develop a community-driven action plan to inform next steps. ($250,000)
RISE Youth Development Program, led by Supportive Equity Connections of Tampa Bay in collaboration with Pinellas County Schools, Stetson University, and Pinellas Ex-Offender Reentry Coalition (PERC): This collaboration delivers school-based supports, community engagement, and youth-led advocacy in middle and high schools in south St. Petersburg. It seeks to reduce juvenile justice contact; expand youth access to trauma-informed mental health care and mentorship; and support students in advocating for policies that formalize youth voice in governance, resource allocation, and program evaluation. ($250,000)
Peli-CAN (Community Access to Nutrition) Program, led by the City of St. Petersburg’s Healthy St. Pete division in collaboration with Florida Central Credit Union, Foodie Labs, and St. Pete Greenhouse: This collaborative program will improve physical and economic access to fresh fruits and vegetables for residents and support local entrepreneurism by facilitating mobile healthy food retailers in St. Petersburg’s Healthy Food Priority Areas. Modeled after New York City’s Green Cart Initiative, the City’s Healthy St. Pete will enroll emerging food service entrepreneurs in a tailored business development program and provide startup infrastructure and capital to support mobile small businesses (like pushcarts) in offering healthy foods. To further remove obstacles for community-driven enterprises like push-cart vending, the City will also examine city ordinances and consider adjusting permitting and zoning rules. ($125,000)
More information is available on the Foundation’s Healthy People 2025 web page.
About the Foundation for a Healthy St. Petersburg
The Foundation for a Healthy St. Petersburg is a private foundation formed in 2013 following the sale of the nonprofit Bayfront Health St. Petersburg. As the steward of an endowment to support health equity in Pinellas County, the Foundation leads, funds, advocates, and partners to create a community in which all people can lead healthy lives. The Foundation advances racially equitable health outcomes by improving the systems and conditions that shape them. It opened its Center for Health Equity in 2019. To learn more, visit https://healthystpete.foundation/
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