A Message from our Executive Director re: COVID-19 Emergency Response

Dear Friends,

On my first day as executive director of the Healthcare Foundation, I heard from many of you who want to help with our local response to the global coronavirus pandemic. The Healthcare Foundation is in a unique position to support our community during this unprecedented challenge as the only funder exclusively focused on health for the northern region of Sonoma County.

We learned valuable lessons from the 2017 and 2019 wildfires, chief among them how to quickly adapt our programming to serve our community’s most pressing needs. With your help, we raised $1.3 million to address the devastating impact and trauma resulting from those fires. In this same spirit, today we announce the establishment of an Emergency Healthcare Fund.

The purpose of this fund is to provide immediate assistance to organizations in Northern Sonoma County that are working directly with our most vulnerable community members. These include agricultural, hospitality and other hourly workers, families with school-age children, and isolated elderly and sick folks in our community. Rapid deployment of money we raise will enable healthcare workers on the front lines to remain focused on providing urgent care to those who need help most.

To kick off this emergency campaign, we received a generous $20,000 matching grant from Mark Freed, CEO of Talon Creek Foundation, allowing us to double the first $20,000 in donations. Thank you Mark! Please consider a gift of any size today to help us reach and exceed this match.

Donate Now to our Emergency Healthcare Fund

We are in regular contact with our grantees about how we can help, and this is their message: Please send as much as you can, as quickly as possible, for needs we cannot yet even imagine. Today we need funds for testing and triaging patients, the emergency implementation of telemedicine, N-95 masks for healthcare workers, and thermometers for low- and very-low income families. Tomorrow’s needs are not yet known. For that reason, the Healthcare Foundation is asking for unrestricted gifts to allow us the most flexibility to address the rapidly evolving needs of our community now and in the coming months.

While COVID-19 does not discriminate by race or income, we know the effects and countermeasures against it – such as the closing of schools and early childhood programs, the shutting down of restaurants, and the laying off of low-wage workers – will hit the most vulnerable communities the hardest. Public health emergencies, like natural disasters, take an increased toll on those groups who were marginalized or excluded before the emergency.

Our mission could not be more urgent: Everyone in our community must have access to healthcare – now. The global pandemic has made it crystal clear: we are all connected to each other. Our trusted, local service providers on the front lines desperately need us all to step up. Please give audaciously to the Emergency Healthcare Fund today, so we can maintain a healthy and vibrant community in this place where we are fortunate to live and work.

Thank you in advance for your generosity and partnership in this extraordinary moment.

In solidarity,

Kim Bender
Executive Director
Healthcare Foundation
111 Monte Vista Ave
Healdsburg, CA 95448
(707) 473-0583
kbender@healthcarefoundation.net

P.S. Double the impact of your gift today and help us reach our initial $20,000 matching goal!

Donate Now to our Emergency Healthcare Fund