Recent Mott Foundation News -- Flint Area

Programs nurture economic growth in Flint area

Tue, 22 May 2012 12:00:00 GMT

By DUANE M. ELLING

Partnership-based initiatives are helping to strengthen the economy of Mott’s home community.
One program is helping local employers reduce operating costs; add “green” products and services; and create new jobs.
Another will capitalize on the area’s unique position as an international transportation hub to attract new businesses.

Efforts are underway to build the economic strength of Mott’s home community.

When it comes to the economic health of Mott’s home community of Genesee County, Michigan, Janice Karcher is keeping an eye on the bottom line.

“The county’s future depends on helping local businesses succeed; bringing new entrepreneurs and employers to the area; growing available jobs; and supporting investments in critical sectors, like education, health care and retail,” says Karcher, vice president of economic development at the Genesee Regional Chamber of Commerce.

“Ultimately, it’s about creating good, sustainable economic results for the entire Flint community.”

Nurturing those results is part of Karcher’s charge at the chamber, where she helps to coordinate several Mott-funded initiatives focused on strengthening the area’s economy. The Foundation’s support for such chamber programs has totaled more than $7.8-million since 1987, with current grants made to the Genesee Area Focus Fund, the chamber’s nonprofit fundraising arm.

Genesee County’s economy has struggled for years, sparked largely by the loss of local jobs from the automotive sector. As with many communities around the country, the Flint area’s financial situation was further battered by the nation’s recent recession.

One of the chamber’s current efforts to get Genesee County back on the right economic track is the Energy, Environment and Economy Innovation Network.

Formally launched in 2011, the network includes more than 100 member businesses and organizations from Genesee and neighboring Lapeer and Shiawassee counties. Its goal: help employers reduce operating costs while incorporating environmentally friendly — or “green” — products and services into their business models and connecting local workers with green job opportunities.

That work began informally in 2009 when the chamber helped a group of area leaders explore possible sustainable energy initiatives for the community. Karcher said they soon began recognizing other opportunities to work together on environment-related issues while linking to broader economic and workforce efforts.

One partnership that emerged pairs Mid-Michigan Solar, a Flint-based company that installs commercial and residential solar-powered energy systems, with the Genesee-Shiawassee Michigan Works Career Alliance, a state-funded agency devoted to workforce development.

The two are co-developing job training programs that will help underemployed workers in Flint prepare for careers in the solar energy industry.

Howard Croft, president and CEO of Mid-Michigan Solar, says the program will provide his company and others with access to a growing pool of skilled workers; help connect the participating trainees to the labor market; and offer positive environmental and economic impacts.

“It also gives small businesses some marketing and networking tools that might otherwise be out of our reach,” he said. “That’s opening doors and leveraging resources, which will help us — meaning both businesses and the community — to grow.”

Karcher agrees, pointing to the partnership between Mid-Michigan Solar and Career Alliance as an example of how the network “is helping organizations and businesses connect more organically. They see their shared interests and needs, and then take the conversation to the next level.”

Another chamber effort is expected to grow the region’s economic strength by capitalizing on its unique position as a transportation hub.

In 2010, lawmakers enacted legislation providing for the creation of five Next Michigan Development Corporations (NMDC) in areas with major transport facilities, such as airports and freeways. These regional entities, equipped with state and federal support, can offer tax incentives as a way to attract new businesses that ship freight in Michigan and beyond.

In February 2011, chamber staff began working with officials from Genesee and nearby Lapeer, Shiawassee and St. Clair counties to seek designation as a NMDC. The area’s transportation resources include the state’s third busiest airport; several interstate freeways, railway systems and water ports; and bridges that connect the U.S. to Canada.

“To qualify as a NMDC, a region needs to offer businesses immediate access to at least one major mode for shipping freight,” Karcher says. “We’re lucky enough to offer them all.”

State officials approved the local application in February, making it one of four to be launched in Michigan. Three others are focused in the regions around metro Detroit, Lansing and Traverse City.

Karcher notes that, in addition to existing shipping resources, the local application’s success hinged on support from the public and private sectors.

“We initially hoped to engage about 20 area municipalities in the project,” she says. “Thirty-five have signed on, making this the largest community-driven economic partnership ever undertaken in Michigan. It’s very exciting.”

Next steps include working across the region to identify economic priorities and opportunities; formalize the tax incentive qualifications and guidelines; and develop a platform for marketing the NMDC to businesses.

David Hollister, senior vice president of strategic initiatives at the Prima Civitas Foundation, is among those working on the local NMDC project. Launched in 2006 with Mott support, the East Lansing-based Prima Civitas helps Michigan residents and leaders explore, understand and realize a new economic vision for the state.

Hollister says initiatives like those undertaken by the Genesee Regional Chamber are central to sparking new growth and vitality in the Flint community and beyond.

“In order for communities to thrive, the regions in which they exist have to be successful,” he said. “The chamber’s projects take that approach and, by helping to build the economic strength of mid-Michigan, they will help to ensure Flint’s own future. That is very exciting to see.”

Students protect local watersheds through Project GREEN

Tue, 01 May 2012 11:46:35 GMT

By ANN RICHARDS

More than 1,200 students from two Michigan counties field test water quality
Out-of-school time program emphasizes science, technology, engineering and math (STEM)
Service learning a key component of GREEN program

Video By DUANE M. ELLING

Picking through a pan of cold, wet river debris in search of leeches, water fleas and threadworms might not excite every student. But for Don Hammond’s environmental science class at Beecher High School, near Flint, Michigan, the chance to be directly involved in a water quality monitoring experience that helps to improve the condition of their community’s watershed is an event to look forward to.

Each April for the past three years, Hammond’s junior and senior high school students have returned to a site on Brent Run, a medium-size creek that feeds into the Flint River, to conduct water quality tests as part of the Flint River GREEN (Global Rivers Environmental Education Network) program.

“The results of every test the students run today will go into a countywide data base for use by the Genesee County Drain Commission, Project GREEN and the Flint River Watershed Coalition (FRWC),” said Hammond, one of 57 teachers in Michigan’s Genesee, Lapeer and Oakland counties who take part in the event.

“More than 1,200 students spend a day conducting nine different tests at the sampling sites,” said Rebecca Fedewa, executive director of the FRWC, the Mott Foundation grantee that administers the program.

The data collected gives a snapshot of the health of the river. As more information is added each year, comparisons can be made about the quality of the water running through the watershed over time.

“The students always expect to find gross stuff in the river and streams,” Fedewa said. “And every year, we see their opinions change. It’s rewarding to see how the experience has a positive impact on their ideas about making a difference in their community.”

GREEN was developed in 1984 by University of Michigan professor William Stapp and Mark Mitchell, his academic assistant, in response to the concerns of a group of students at a high school located along the polluted Huron River in Ann Arbor. In collaboration with Earth Force, a Denver-based nonprofit youth organization, GREEN has developed a nationally recognized curricula, training and resource base for teachers implementing the program, which now operates in 20 states and engages more than 100,000 students each year. Flint River GREEN is one of the largest of these programs.

GREEN pairs each participating classroom with a volunteer mentor with a background in science, engineering or chemistry. In addition to providing technical support for the classroom teacher, the mentor visits the class prior to testing day to get to know the students, walk them through the field testing and help them understand how a science background can lead to a variety of interesting career options.

“We’re fortunate to have really great mentors for our program,” said Fedewa. “They work for General Motors and the county drain commission — which both provide financial support — the city of Flint’s Water Pollution Control Division, local universities and the local county extension office. They give a lot of their time to make this an interesting experience for the kids.”

Post-testing, mentors return to the class to discuss the results and how the data stacks up to the previous year. If the site’s score is significantly different from the previous year, mentors help students develop a theory as to why this may have occurred.

Mentors also accompany their class to an annual summit in May, where students present the results of their testing on the campus of one of Flint’s colleges or universities.

For Don Hammond, who received a national Green Teacher award for his contributions to GREEN’s Watershed STEM Initiative, the summit — like the testing day on Brent Run — offers an alternative, academically stimulating way of teaching.

“This type of activity makes my students excited about learning. It makes me a more effective teacher. And best of all, it helps build communication and respect — a positive relationship — between me and my students.”

Rails and roads: the impacts of mass transit on economic equity

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 11:15:28 GMT

Study: Metropolitan mass transit systems often don’t reach areas where workers find jobs

Improving access to jobs has a direct economic impact on families and regions

Equitable investments — including in mass transit — are key to the sustainability of metro areas

Since 2007, the Mott Foundation has been funding efforts by the Metropolitan Policy Program — an initiative of the Washington DC-based Brookings Institution — to explore ways that government, education and business communities in the Great Lakes states can work together to develop a winning economic vision for the region.

Robert Puentes

Those activities continued today as Robert Puentes, senior fellow at the program, and leaders from throughout Michigan met in Mott’s hometown of Flint to discuss the economic implications, including for low-income families, of the state’s metropolitan mass transportation systems. The meeting was sponsored by the Foundation and included findings from Brookings’s 2011 report, “Missed Opportunity: Transit and Jobs in Metropolitan America,” which documented inequities in 100 mass transit systems across the country.

Mott Communications Officer Duane Elling spoke with Puentes about the report and the relationships between mass transit systems and jobs, neighborhoods and the economic strength of metropolitan communities.

Mott: What have been some “ah-ha” moments for audiences since the publication of “Missed Opportunity”?

Puentes: Perhaps the biggest is the moment of clarity when they understand the difference between mobility and accessibility.

Over the last few decades, mass transit in the U.S. has largely focused on reducing the number of cars on the streets in large metropolitan areas, with the goals of minimizing traffic congestion and moving people faster and more efficiently from point A to point B. For obvious reasons, this emphasis on mobility seems to make a lot of sense.

The problem is that today’s transit systems often don’t stop in — or sometimes even travel to — the areas where their riders are most likely to find employment. This is especially problematic for low-income workers, for whom mass transit is often the only available form of mobile transport.

The result is that, even allowing for 90 minutes of travel time, today’s typical mass transit commuter can access only about 30 percent of all jobs in the surrounding metro area. For workers in low- and middle-skill industries, that number falls to about one-quarter of all jobs.

We now know that the high level of mobility made possible by mass transit systems is frequently offset by the lack of access to available job and career opportunities, which has a direct impact on workers, their families and neighborhoods, and the community’s overall economic strength.

Mott: How is this shaping public conversations about transit?

Click to play "This is a Transit Moment" video.

Puentes: I think we’re going through a transportation renaissance. We’re getting past the debates about cars versus mass transit, and as I described above, folks are starting to realize that transportation isn’t just about the means by which people travel back and forth. It’s about helping people to access job opportunities and open doors to economic stability.

I think these conversations are helping metro areas put transit in its proper perspective, to better understand its connections to employment and sustainability, both of which Mott has certainly been plugged into for a number of years. It’s helping communities to understand the direct relation that those factors have in the area’s overall economic strength and stability.

Mott: How are those insights helping to inform or shape debates about the overall economic future of metropolitan areas?

Puentes: The big take away is that that transit providers can lay down the train rails and put together the bus routes, but they can only do so much to address the problems of economic access and equity.

Creating real change in those issues requires that metro areas take a close, critical look at how their use and allocation of local resources, including mass transit, is supporting — or hindering — their communities’ ability to engage people in the local economy. They have to look at what improvements to the local infrastructure are needed and available, and how those fit within a picture of future growth and development.

Creating such change also requires that local, state and federal leaders make informed, balanced and equitable decisions when it comes to investments in communities, and that they recognize that the economic seeds they plant today will impact our metro areas for many years to come.

Kimberly Roberson: Mott’s approach to hometown grantmaking

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 12:00:00 GMT

By DUANE M. ELLING

Since 1926, Mott has helped its hometown of Flint, Michigan, respond to challenges and opportunities.

The Foundation’s local grantmaking is helping Flint reinvent itself in such key areas as workforce and economic development, children and youth, and arts and culture.

When Charles Stewart Mott created his foundation in Flint, Michigan in 1926, it was with a keen interest in the well-being of his adopted hometown. That commitment to Flint continues today, as highlighted in these videos on the Foundation's Hometown Grantmaking

Children and Youth

Workforce Development

Arts and Culture

Festivals and Events

That local work helps inform — and is informed by — the Foundation’s national and international grantmaking.

When Charles Stewart Mott created his foundation in Flint, Michigan in 1926, it was with a keen interest in the overall well-being of his adopted hometown. Over the years, as the city’s fortunes waxed and waned, the Mott Foundation continued to support the organizations, programs and initiatives that offered hope for moving the Flint community forward.

That effort continues, with grants from the Foundation’s Flint Area Program totaling nearly $24 million in 2011.

Kimberly S. Roberson, director of the Flint Area Program since October 2011, recently sat down with Mott Communications Officer Duane M. Elling to reflect on how the Foundation is supporting efforts to craft a new future for Flint.

Mott: What are some of the key challenges facing Flint?

Roberson: The challenges in Flint are similar to those faced by many post-industrial cities around the country and even the world. They include rebuilding the local economy, which in Flint was devastated over time by the loss of tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs. The resulting erosion in the local tax base is tied to an aging, deteriorating infrastructure that was originally designed to serve a city much larger than what we have now.

Those economic challenges have affected area schools and public services, such as police and fire departments, and strained the community’s nonprofit sector. And the situation has been made even more difficult over the last several years by economic struggles at the state and national levels.

Ultimately, Flint is challenged with reinventing itself. I think the community will always be proud of its place in history as the birthplace of General Motors, but I also believe that most people recognize that the city’s future will look very different from its past. The best hope for Flint is turning that challenge into an opportunity, and I believe we are seeing that happen.

Kimberly Roberson
Mott: What is Mott’s approach to helping the community face those challenges?

Roberson: Rather than having a prescriptive “blueprint” for our local grantmaking, the Foundation seeks to be responsive to the community’s challenges, as well as its opportunities. For example, we’ve long believed in the importance of education, which is why we fund various afterschool and educational programs targeting area children and youth, including initiatives that seek to help the community’s most vulnerable kids stay connected to education.

We also know that a trained and skilled workforce is key to meeting the needs of local employers and to attracting new business and jobs to Flint. To that end, we support job training initiatives in a number of promising sectors, including health care, advanced manufacturing and the environmental or “green” economy.

The responsiveness of Mott’s local grantmaking to emerging opportunities is reflected in our support of various downtown and economic revitalization efforts. This includes the ongoing redevelopment of vacant properties and storefronts in the city’s downtown corridor, which is home to a growing number of restaurants, office and retail spaces, loft apartments, and housing for local college students. Those developments are helping to create a more vibrant urban core that can help breathe new life into the entire Genesee County community.

Mott: Could you tell us more about the Mott approach?

Roberson: As in most communities, Flint’s nonprofit sector plays a critical role in helping residents weather hard times and address local needs. The Foundation has long supported the nonprofit sector and, with the tremendous need facing the community during the nation’s recession, Mott has helped fund various emergency services that keep the local “safety net” in place for area families.

We also seek to support what we call “centers of strength,” those local institutions and programs that have historically helped to hold the Flint area together during good and difficult times, and that offer a solid footing for future work. These include several area colleges and universities; the local health care system; community and economic development programs; and arts and cultural organizations, including the Flint Cultural Center.

We recognize that the Foundation’s economic resources are dwarfed by those of the government and private sectors, and by the overall need in the Genesee County community. Ultimately, our goal is to leverage the available resources — financial, as well as human capital — that will help Flint to create a new, sustainable future.

Mott: How does the Foundation’s grantmaking in Flint intersect with its global programmatic interests?

Roberson: As I noted earlier, the challenges and opportunities facing Flint are shared to varying degrees with many other communities around the globe. The Foundation’s national and international grantmaking provide access to ideas, strategies and expertise that can help our hometown address its own unique needs.

At the same time, Flint is providing models and approaches that other communities are learning from and, in some cases, replicating. The Genesee County Land Bank and Center for Community Progress; Mott Middle and Early College; and the BEST program are a few examples of local initiatives, funded by the Foundation, that are helping to inform and frame broader conversations about community revitalization.

Hometown Grantmaking in Flint: Children and Youth

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 10:45:27 GMT

The Summer Tot Lot program is an initiative of Flint Community Schools.

More information about YouthQuest and the Summer Youth Initiative is available from the Genessee Regional Chamber of Commerce.

Hometown Grantmaking in Flint: Festivals and Events

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 10:45:05 GMT

The video included clips from several Flint festivals and events that are supported by Mott, including:

Back to the Bricks
Bikes on the Bricks
Crim Festival of Races
Flint Parade of Festivals (a service of the Greater Flint Arts Council)

Hometown Grantmaking in Flint: Flint Cultural Center

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 10:16:44 GMT

To learn about the Institutions on the Flint Cultural Center campus visit www.flintcultural.org.

Hometown Grantmaking in Flint: Workforce Development

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 10:12:15 GMT

Visit Flint STRIVE for more information about this program.

The Teen CEO program is one of several workforce development program offered by Mott Community College.

Michigan afterschool partnership tackles childhood obesity

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 12:00:00 GMT

By ANN RICHARDS

At South Bendle Elementary School near Flint, Michigan, 80 kindergarten through third-grade students faithfully lace up their gym shoes after school each Tuesday and Thursday, ready to move outdoors in any kind of weather. As members of the school’s popular “running club,” these young athletes are learning healthy habits that hopefully will last a lifetime.

Marilyn Shaski, South Bendle's longtime school secretary and founder of the running club

“Life is good when you’re running,” says Marilyn Shaski, South Bendle’s longtime school secretary and founder of the running club. “Some days we play more than we run, but being outside, talking to your friends and maybe taking part in a few relay races — it’s a great way to clear your head and let go of the day’s problems.”

Trisha Cherveny, Bendle’s principal, is an enthusiastic supporter of her building’s afterschool activities — including its CrimFit Youth Program, as the running club is more formally known.

“We’re a K-3 school. At our level, there’s only so much you can put the kids through before they’re ready for some play and physical activity. The running club gives them an outlet for all that energy and gives us an opportunity to teach good health habits early — by using a different, more active learning style than we use in the classroom.”

The school’s partnership with the local Crim Fitness Foundation, which operates a countywide network of adult and youth fitness activities at elementary and middle schools, helps fortify South Bendle’s afterschool offerings, Cherveny said. Since 2008, the Mott Foundation has provided $675,700 to increase the Crim’s capacity to provide health and physical fitness programs in local schools.

Cherveny hopes to expand the running club to parents and community members by installing a paved track around the perimeter of the school’s playground.

“Installing a track that is accessible to everyone and brings people here to the school — that is our ultimate goal.”

Since the 1970’s, the obesity rate for children 6 to 11 years old has tripled in Michigan. Nearly 19 percent of that age group is overweight or obese, according to the University of Michigan’s Prevention and Research Center, which works to track and improve the health of children and youth in partnership with families and communities.

Like many districts across Michigan, Bendle has become increasingly concerned about the effects of childhood obesity on students’ ability to develop socially and academically.

“The running club provides an opportunity to introduce our kids to exercise — and the basics of good nutrition,” says Shaski, who began running 10 years ago. “It’s not a formal thing — but as we run, or skip or walk, we talk about what is good to eat and what’s not so good to eat. I try to plant that seed early on.”

Complete Runner staff lending support with discounted gym shoes and fittings for students at South Bendle.

South Bendle’s running club is “a really good example of a consistently excellent program,” said Erin Lamb, Youth Program director for the Crim Fitness Foundation, which partners with 49 elementary schools throughout Genesee County to supplement physical education programming during the school day as well as before and after school.

“A number of schools have been forced to cut back on their P.E. classes and some have eliminated recess, so they look to us to find ways to get students moving — whether it’s starting a running club after school or training teachers how to introduce short activity breaks during regular school hours,” she said.

“We encourage schools to do whatever works for them and their students — and we’re tracking the interventions that are most effective.”

Among the most promising indicators of CrimFit Youth Program's first-year evaluation is a link between increased physical activity and higher scores in math and reading, says Lamb.

“We’re very interested in understanding what interventions stay with students,” she said of Crim’s efforts to evaluate the effectiveness of their programming. To that end, the Crim Fitness Foundation also is collaborating with Flint Community Schools to conduct a longitudinal study of fourth, fifth and sixth grade students to determine whether the habits developed through participation in CrimFit programs stay with them through middle school.

“I’ve had several parents tell me that the running club is making a difference for their children,” said Shaski, adding that one child reportedly was able to use an inhaler less frequently after joining the running club.

Shaski believes her runners get psychological benefits from participating in the club as well.

“It helps them develop discipline and patience — one of my larger kids was kind of frustrated that he works so hard — he gives 150 percent — but never comes in first. But he keeps coming every Tuesday and Thursday.”

Flint-based program to advance public health locally and nationally

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 12:00:00 GMT

By DUANE M. ELLING

With health care in the U.S. a prime topic of discussion, an initiative in Flint, Michigan is expected to spark new ways of thinking about medical professionals and their relationships with patients, their profession and the communities where they live and work.

It was announced today that Flint will be home to the public health program of Michigan State University’s (MSU) College of Human Medicine. The program, launched in 2008 on MSU’s main campus in East Lansing, offers a master’s degree in public health, which students can pair with a doctorate in medicine. That dual degree — the first of its kind in the country — trains physicians to improve the overall well-being of communities by identifying, understanding and addressing the unique health care needs of local families.

Meeting the unique medical needs of local families will be a key goal of the MSU public health program in Flint.

The program has enrolled 350 students in just three years.

As the program is centered in Flint over the coming months, it is expected to increase — from 60 to 100 — the total number of third- and fourth-year MSU medical students working at any given time in Genesee County. It will also advance the field of public health — locally and nationally — by offering community-based research opportunities in disease prevention and control.

The Flint program’s development is funded, in part, by a $2.8-million grant to MSU from the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. That grant reflects the Foundation’s significant ongoing investment in education and the well-being of its hometown.

MSU’s longstanding relationship with the greater Flint community makes the city an ideal home for the public health program, notes University President Lou Anna Simon. Genesee County’s health care system has provided MSU medical students with clinical training and internship opportunities since the 1970s.

“Reflecting its core priorities, Michigan State University is working with community partners across the state to train health care workers and to promote regional prosperity,” said Simon.

“The partnership with the Mott Foundation is an important example. Working in Flint and Genesee County, not only is MSU providing crucial services to residents, but it also is providing unique opportunities for students both in public health and medical education.”

Flint is one of two Michigan cities chosen by MSU to host its flagship medical school programs. The headquarters for the College of Human Medicine was moved to Grand Rapids in 2010.

The public health program is expected to be located in Flint’s downtown area, making it part of the city’s growing higher education community. Other institutions downtown are Kettering University, Mott Community College and the University of Michigan-Flint — all are Mott grantees.

While the master’s degree coursework is completed entirely online, medical students will be encouraged to take their required month-long practicum at a Flint area hospital, community agency or the Genesee County Health Department.

Marsha Rappley, dean of MSU’s medical school, says the program will bring up to seven federally funded researchers to Flint. Those staff will work on key health issues in Flint, with the findings helping to inform public health efforts around the country.

An MSU/Flint Community Research Advisory Committee will help guide and develop the public health program.

“With a group of excellent partners and a strong philanthropic community, our new advisory committee will establish a menu of public health research needs for Flint and enable us to recruit researchers to help find best practices to address these areas of need,” said Rappley.

Patrick Wardell, president and CEO of Hurley Medical Center in Flint, is excited that the program will grow a pipeline of physicians and researchers trained in a public health approach. Recent studies suggest a national shortage of primary care physicians by 2020, while the American Medical Association has called for more physicians among people of color, and more health care for underserved populations.

Hurley is among the local hospitals and other community partners, including the health department, that are represented on the advisory committee.

Wardell says the program’s unique educational and research opportunities will help make Flint an attractive choice for medical students across the country. Those students, along with program staff and researchers, will contribute to the local economy and may ultimately choose to stay in the community.

"Having the program in Flint will add to the intellectual atmosphere already present here and enhance Flint's growing reputation as a university town,” he said. “And the curriculum, with its strong emphasis on public health and patient care, will expose medical students to an outstanding academic and training experience.”

The Flint community is expected to play an active role in the public health program’s ongoing development. Representatives from the college and local health care system will work with area organizations, including from the public health and nonprofit sectors, to identify health-related trends and priorities.

That input will help guide the program’s curriculum, practice and research, and will ultimately support better decisions about public health policy and funding in the greater Flint area, says Mark Valacak, health officer at the Genesee County Health Department.

He also notes that bringing more health care practitioners and researchers to Flint could significantly impact the community’s overall well-being.

“Understanding and preventing disease helps to keep people healthier overall, which reduces the costs of health care and helps to create a more stable and productive community,” said Valacak.

“The MSU program will help us to make sure that all residents, including those who are most at risk of diseases and who might be otherwise underserved, get the care they need to be healthy and stay healthy.”