Community Wellness Center Convenings in Healdsburg

This month, the Healthcare Foundation announced a grant of $285,000 secured in December from Providence St. Joseph Health to support a community convening and visioning process for residents of Healdsburg to explore the potential for a multicultural Community Wellness Center there. 

The project extends to Healdsburg a similar process instigated over a year ago in Cloverdale and Windsor with funding from North Sonoma County Healthcare District and Providence. The Healthcare Foundation, working with several key community partners, launched the neighborhood convenings in December 2022—reaching out in particular to historically marginalized and underserved Latine residents—to envision what an inclusive, safe, vibrant, green, and intergenerational community space of belonging would look like for residents in each of the three northern Sonoma County towns. 

Leading local community-based organizations collaborating on the Cloversdale project include La Familia Sana, Nuestra Comunidad, and Alexander Valley Healthcare; while in Windsor they are joined by Alliance Medical Center; and in Healdsburg by Corazón Healdsburg. In all three locations the project, which local participants have named “Nuestra Comunidad Sana,” is being facilitated by On the Margins.

The grant from Providence will go to community outreach, facilitation of community meetings, and a report to be used as a vision and roadmap toward a community wellness center that serves the express needs and desires of Healdsburg residents. Moreover, the project advances the recommendation of the City of Healdsburg’s own recent DEI report, which pointed to the need for a multicultural community center for residents.

“This project has been inspired by the evidence of the wide-ranging positive health impacts of community wellness centers,” explained Healthcare Foundation Executive Director Kim Bender. “Our approach is the opposite of ‘build it and they will come.’ By facilitating the formulation of a community-driven and community-centered vision for such a center in Healdsburg, we hope to generate the momentum among residents and other stakeholders for the eventual establishment of a community wellness center that locals embrace and derive real use from.”

The project advances the recommendation of the City of Healdsburg’s own recent DEI report, which pointed to the need for a multicultural community center for residents.