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Through the Healthy Opportunities Pilot (HOP), Impact Health partners with dozens of organizations to ensure Western North Carolina has more opportunities for better health. These stories illustrate how our amazing partners are using HOP to address the upstream drivers of health. Working together, our communities are becoming healthier and more connected.
PARTNER STORY
Like many rural community organizations, Haywood Christian Ministry (HCM) was founded to prevent friends and neighbors from falling through the safety net. Over the past 50 years, the faith-based organization has evolved from a volunteer crisis line to one of Haywood County’s largest nonprofits offering food, clothing, and housing assistance for those in crisis.
PARTNER STORY
As a secondary math and science teacher in Graham County, Misty Shope has helped a lot of students learn critical life skills. But over the past 21 years, her students have taught her a thing or two as well. Like how difficult it is to learn when you don’t have enough food to eat. Or why you must miss school when you are waiting for your hand-washed clothes to dry. Or why extra-curricular activities aren’t an option because your family has no reliable way to pick you up.
PARTNER STORY
Sonya Jones has never been one to pass up an opportunity. In fact, it was an important skill for someone who, growing up, experienced hunger in a community known for its fertile farmland. But Sonya’s wasn’t the only family struggling to make ends meet. Approximately 20% of adults in Western North Carolina are food insecure.
PARTNER STORY
Many of us can say that our parent or grandparent was our first teacher. They were also likely our first caregiver, cook, driver, activity coordinator, and playmate. Those are a lot of responsibilities. And each one draws on a different set of skills and resources, which is why the Children & Family Resource Center (CFRC) was founded more than 25 years ago in Henderson County.
PARTNER STORY
Many of us would be excited to discover a box of chocolates, but this was not the case when Chasity Poteat Rice discovered large quantities of them during a visit to a food pantry when she was director of Burke County United Way. Her first reaction was to get angry; her community needed access to healthy food, not candy. But she quickly realized that the pantry was simply sharing what had been donated—chocolate and lots of it.
PARTNER STORY
It has been said that recovery is hard work. This is especially true for those recovering from mental health and/or addiction challenges. For these individuals, success often depends on being able to access both medical treatment and a robust array of social supports.
PARTNER STORY
Haywood Street Respite has welcomed and supported more than 1,000 community members who needed a place to rest and recover. They’ve helped these friends stay out of the hospital, get much-needed follow-up care, and secure stable housing. The respite ministry enables friends to experience and participate in a caring community. Sometimes for the first time.
PARTNER STORY
Land of Sky Regional Council (LOS) wants to make sure there is no limit when it comes to helping WNC residents access reliable transportation for health-related needs like trips to the farmers market, educational events, job interviews, support groups, legal appointments, and recreational activities.
PARTNER STORY
Sometimes progress can be hard to define, much less measure. Not so at Macon Program for Progress (MPP) whose measure is the degree to which they help clients achieve self-sufficiency. For nearly 60 years, MPP has helped Macon County residents with cradle-to-grave services that include early childcare, vocational training, and housing assistance help adults find, afford, and safely age at home.
PARTNER STORY
McDowell Local Food Advisory Council is one of several WNC HOP organizations working hard to ensure community members can access fresh local food. This focus aligns perfectly with HOP, which aims to build a sustainable network of human service organizations providing equitable access to healthy food, reliable transportation, affordable and safe housing, and interpersonal safety services.
PARTNER STORY
Andrea and Justin are no strangers to hard work. They live on a rural property in Northwest Buncombe County where they operate a small family farm. Everything was going well until 2020 when COVID-19 shuttered area farmers’ markets, and the cost of feed and farm supplies skyrocketed. In 2021, their twins were diagnosed with chronic respiratory disease. And then, the roof started to leak.
PARTNER STORY
Mountain folk are known to go to extraordinary lengths to help a neighbor, and they often have to because of Western North Carolina’s challenging topography. Waynesville-based Mountain Projects understands this and other regional challenges and is working hard to make life better for everyone who calls these mountains home.
PARTNER STORY
When Alan and Amy Hoilman founded Neighbors Feeding Neighbors in Mitchell County, it was with one goal in mind: to treat their neighbors like they would want to be treated themselves.
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Stay up to date with the latest news and information from Impact Health.