SitemapSix health and wellness initiatives in Mahoning County received a total of $101,900 in grants from the Western Reserve Health Foundation on Thursday.
The Neil Kennedy Recovery Center was granted $20,000 to help support patients with mindfulness yoga classes and a wellness garden.
The programs are designed to develop greater self-confidence and self-reliance to help patients continue their recovery outside of treatment.
The yoga classes will relate yoga to recovery, and will be taught by professional instructors trained in 12-step yoga.
The classes will be taught in the outdoor wellness garden. The wellness garden is designed to help patients connect to and find peace in nature. The patients will build and cultivate the garden, using their creativity to make it a reflection of the people that use it.
The Youngstown area Goodwill Industries received $23,000 for their vision screening program for at-risk children.
The grant will allow the program to purchase new computerized testing equipment.
The screenings, which take place at community events and health fairs, look for amblyopia, or lazy eye, among 3- to 5-year-old children.
Currently, the program is using standardized screening instruments that have several drawbacks. Children that are unable to identify shapes cannot correctly respond during the assessment. The results are also interpreted by the screener and recorded manually, which increases the possibility of inaccuracy. In addition, the current testing time is 5 minutes per child.
This new equipment will help overcome these obstacles. Since no response from the child is needed, it is effective for non-verbal, non-compliant and developmentally challenged children. The equipment has a very low number of inconclusive results, with much faster testing time. In addition, the equipment is effective for children that are afraid of ocular glasses, unable to identify shapes and those with other barriers, according to the Western Reserve Health Foundation.
Other grants given will support several initiatives, including physical activity, nutrition, and the reduction of infant mortality.
Youngstown State University was granted $27,900 for their health disparities partnership with Midlothian Free Health Clinic.
The Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation received $15,000 for the Safe Routes to School Program to hire a coordinator to lead the educational piece of the project.
Akron Children's Hospital was granted $10,000 for a Pediatric Cancer Family Support Fund that will help families of pediatric cancer patients with urgent expenses.
The hospital received an additional $6,000 for their Safe Sleep Program to support the Safe Sleep Summit, provide Safe Sleep Kits to families with newborns as well as expand training to area day cares, pediatricians, family practitioners and community agencies that serve low-income families and minority populations.
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