By Jondi Gumz
For the first time, billionaire author-turned-philanthropist MacKenzie Scott decided to ask worthy nonprofits to apply for funding to support their work. She got 6,353 applications, and instead of awarding $1 million each to 250 organizations, she opted to give away $640 million to 361 community nonprofits.
The Health Trust, based in Watsonville, a farming and largely Latino community with high poverty rates and high rates of chronic illness, aims to change that by providing resources to empower people to make lifestyle changes that help them live longer and healthier lives.
“We are so incredibly grateful to be recognized on a national level for our work,” said DeAndre’ James, executive director of the Community Health Trust since 2019. “If you focus on doing good things for the right reasons, the money will follow.”
In Santa Cruz County, diabetes rates are 75 percent higher for Latinos than they are for whites.
Farmworkers who come here for seasonal jobs, planting and harvesting crops, get accustomed to the American high-carbohydrate food choices, pizza, hamburger on a bun with French fries, and cheap soda – one can may have 40 mg of sugar, equal to 10 teaspoons of sugar.
That can put you on the road to diabetes.
The Health Trust opened the Diabetes Health Center in 1998 because an overwhelming number of people were seeking emergency care at Watsonville Community Hospital for uncontrolled diabetes.
In 2023, the Health Trust supported 2,262 patient visits, nearly half children, many with nutritional therapy.
Grants of $225,000 were awarded to community-based organizations serving the Pajaro Valley and $83,000 in scholarships given to students seeking careers in healthcare.
Newer initiatives:
- Weekly farmers’ market
- Prescription for produce, more than $49,000 in veggie vouchers redeemed
- Community gardens in healthy food deserts, such as Carey-Davis Community Garden, attracting 43 members
- Free exercise classes with movement screening by a local physical therapist, supported by the Central California Alliance for Health.
- A drop-in mental health center for youth — alcove — in Watsonville, in the planning stage.
Scott, who lives in Seattle and is the former wife of Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, and her team took notice.
The application process began a year ago.
Yield Giving, founded by Scott, who is determined to give away half her wealth, launched an “Open Call” for community-led, community-focused organizations whose purpose is to enable individuals and families to achieve substantive improvement in their wellbeing through foundational resources.
Scott wrote about her approach to philanthropy on yieldgiving.com.
Initially she asked nonprofit advisors with representation from historically marginalized race, gender, and sexual identity groups to help her find and assess organizations having major impact.
This time, she asked community nonprofits to share what they are doing, no doubt uncovering organizations she had never heard of.
Yield Giving worked with Lever for Change, a nonprofit affiliate of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, which helps donors “find and fund bold solutions to the world’s biggest problems—including issues like racial inequity, gender inequality, access to economic opportunity.”
The organizations top-rated by their peers advanced to a second round of review by an external evaluation panel recruited for experience, and then a final round of due diligence.
In light of the incredible work being done, as judged by peers and external panelists, the donor team decided to expand the awardee pool — and the award amount.
Community Health Trust of the Pajaro Valley made the cut.
“In a world teeming with potential and talent, the Open Call has given us an opportunity to identify, uplift, and empower transformative organizations that often remain unseen,” said Cecilia Conrad, CEO of Lever for Change.
Community Health Trust, founded with money from the 1998 sale of Watsonville Community Hospital to a for-profit operator, manages several endowments that support its programs, but those funds cover only a third of annual expenditures.
Revenue from donations, fundraisers and grants — such as the $2 million from the state for the youth mental health center — are critical to keep providing services aiming to help people get healthier.
There is still plenty of work to do.
The latest Santa Cruz County health rankings, unveiled March 20, appear to paint a bright picture but leaders such as Stephen Gray, CEO of the now locally-owned Watsonville Community Hospital, and Erica Padilla-Chavez of Second Harvest Food Bank, agreed that where you live dictate health outcomes.
Gray noted higher percentages of children in poverty and adults with diabetes in South County compared to North County.
“These are political determinants of health,” he said.
Learn more at https://pvhealthtrust.org/