For Immediate Release
Baptist Health Foundation of San Antonio grants $6.6 million
to local health-related organizations
Foundation awards more than $1 million to
UT Health Science Center San Antonio for Alzheimer’s Institute
SAN ANTONIO – Baptist Health Foundation of San Antonio is awarding more than $6.6 million to 86 area non-profit organizations to improve the health and well-being of communities in eight South Texas counties. That amount includes a grant of more than $1 million to the University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio for a new Alzheimer’s Institute.
The $1,050,000 UTHSC grant, the largest award in the BHFSA’s history, will help establish a comprehensive Institute for Alzheimer and Neurodegenerative Disease at the UT Health Science Center to serve the estimated 55,000 patients and caregivers in San Antonio and South Texas.
The BHFSA grant will assist with the recruitment of leading clinical specialists and researchers to San Antonio with a focus on treating and studying Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, frontal temporal dementia and other neurodegenerative diseases.
“Baptist Health Foundation is deeply honored and humbled to make the largest grant in its history to the UTHSCSA’s landmark establishment of a much needed Alzheimer’s Institute,” said Cody Knowlton, President and CEO of BHFSA. “This dreaded disease affects millions and the Foundation’s Trustees recognized that this was the project which needed more of God’s money in 2015.”
BHFSA awarded $6,655,901 to 86 non-profit organizations this year, the largest amount of money and recipients since the foundation began awarding annual grants in 2005. The 2015 amount is an increase of $684,851 from last year, with 14 more organizations receiving funding than in 2014.
All of the awards support a wide range of services and educational opportunities to enhance the health of residents of Bexar County and contiguous counties in South Texas, including Atascosa, Bandera, Comal, Guadalupe, Kendall, Medina and Wilson counties.
Other grant recipients range from the American Diabetes Association to Girls Inc., a non-profit that provides mentorship and programming that helps girls make positive choices and plan for their futures.
Other grants given by BHFSA included $1,069,900 in scholarship funding to students pursuing health-related careers at 14 local institutions as well as two disaster relief awards for $25,000 to Texas Baptist Men and $50,000 to the Salvation Army.
“To God Be the Glory for the excellent work area non-profits do which enables the Baptist Health Foundation to fulfill its mission of improving the health of our community by fostering and funding clinical, educational, spiritual and scientific initiatives while honoring God and our Baptist heritage,” Knowlton said.
Since issuing their first annual grant awards in 2005, BHFSA in conjunction with the former Baptist Health Services Foundation has awarded 792 health-related grants totaling $55,468,903 to organizations in its eight-county region.
Baptist Health Foundation of San Antonio was established in September 2004 from sale proceeds of the Baptist Health System to Vanguard Health Systems of Nashville, TN. The Foundation is committed to improving the health of the community by fostering and funding clinical, educational, spiritual and scientific initiatives while honoring God and the Baptist heritage. For more information visit the Foundation online at www.bhfsa.org.
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