Atrium Health Floyd-Polk Foundation Grants Totaling More Than $585,000 Will Benefit Children

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 21^st 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.