JANESVILLE — SSM Health St. Mary’s Hospital in Janesville joined Rock County nonprofits for its seventh-annual Community Partner Breakfast at Rotary Botanical Gardens on Friday, at which it launched its 2025 mini grant program.
Additionally, a focus of the breakfast gathering was the health needs of Rock County.
The annual breakfastn serves as a platform for collaboration and inspiration, according to Megan Timm, regional director of community health for SSM.
“The intent of the event was to share space with each other, network and get inspired by the collaborative work that we do together,” Timm said.
A key focus of the breakfast was the Community Health Needs Assessment, a required assessment for nonprofit hospitals conducted every three years.
Timm said the assessment, which takes approximately nine months to complete, identifies the community’s most pressing health issues and informs both the hospital’s initiatives and the mini-grant program.
“We bring the CHNA to the forefront of the breakfast and in our mini grant application because we want to make sure that those partners that are applying for funds are thinking about the top priorities that our community has identified,” Timm said.
The event went on to highlight the success of the 2024 mini grant recipients who also shared their goals for 2025.
Building a Safer Evansville, one of the 2024 recipients, shared they had created Gateway Gardens, a community garden in Orfordville, which is an identified “food desert” according to a release from SSM.
Building a Safer Evansville also partnered with local businesses and schools to build raised portable garden beds to be utilized by residents in Orfordville and Evansville. With 13 garden plots tilled last year, they noted that there would be at least 20 this year.
The group also hosted Cooking with a Hero classes that helped low-income families with nutrition education and access to resources.
The second 2024 recipient, “Achieving Excellent Outcomes for Families in their homes project” saw collaboration from Nutrition and Health Associates/Rock County WIC and Early Head Start.
This project helped to “remove barriers for low-income families to receive nutrition education and receive important health screenings for lead” the release said, noting that they now have systems in place to continue with their work and have “strengthened” partnerships along the way.
“The grant helped get them united to have a more coordinated effort and the results were phenomenal,” Timm said.
Rock County nonprofits may apply for up to $10,000 to launch projects in 2025 that address community health needs, with a particular interest in supporting ideas related to mental health care and safe, affordable housing.
The deadline to enter mini grant proposals is Feb. 28. Timm noted that the selection process takes two weeks, and by March 14 applicants will be notified of their application status.
“There is nothing like bringing in these partners and feeling the energy of what we could possibly do in 2025 to improve the community,” Timm said. “It really energizes us at SSM to think about how to keep our dollars in our community and going towards things that our partners see would really be a value to the community.”
She noted that it’s not SSM Health coming up with the ideas but that “our partners are bringing us in to help get those great ideas that they’ve come up with off the ground.”
Questions regarding the 2025 mini grant program can be directed to Timm at her email, megan.timm@ssmhealth.com.
