Grants can sometimes make a difference in a community. While we aren’t always in support of grants that often hook agencies and then leave them to find local funding to maintain them two or three years after the grant kicks in, there are those which make a huge dent in problems a county can experience.
The Human Resources & Services Administration/Bureau of Primary Health Care grant recently received by CommWell Health fits that bill, providing local youngsters with much needed, and often hard to afford, dental care. The same is true for IMPACT Sampson, a long-term disaster recovery program that will aid residents impacted by Hurricane Matthew but unable to qualify for federal assistance.
CommWell’s grant will bring mobile dental services to the Union School District, one of the county’s most depressed financial areas. Through the grant, the dentist office on wheels will visit schools in the district five days a week during the spring, offering checkups and X-rays to students, many of whom have never stepped foot in a dentist office before.
The benefits are enormous and we are thankful to CommWell for providing care that will produce results for years to come.
We’re just as thank for for our United Way and the IMPACT Sampson which will allow residents who have fallen through the qualifying cracks of state and federal funding to get some relief of their unmet needs.
Both grants will work wonders for our residents, meeting needs that otherwise, might not get met.