Program vision
The Health Program seeks to improve childhood nutrition and fitness in San Francisco Bay Area schools, and to provide ongoing, stable financial support to promising early stage investigators who are researching Alzheimer’s and other aging diseases.
Program Overview
The Foundation focuses its Health investments on children and the elderly. Access to quality preventive health care is critical for children to persist and succeed in school. It is essential to engage children and their families in championing the health of their schools and communities. Medical research programs can also help individuals of all ages improve their quality of life, and identifying treatments can greatly increase life expectancy across the population. As life expectancy increases, the prevalence of aging diseases grows as well. Therefore, the Foundation supports innovative medical research to treat Alzheimer’s and other diseases that impact an increasing number of Americans.
Grantmaking objectives
Access. Develop school-based health centers and build their capacity to serve more students, improve health outcomes, and advance academic success.
Wellness. Increase student engagement in efforts to make schools and communities more conducive to healthy eating and physical activity.
Research. Enable promising early stage investigators to focus on research that advances
treatments for Alzheimer’s and other aging diseases.
Highlighted grants
Wellness. An extensive community based healthcare system, La Clinica de la Raza, operates six school-based health centers in the Oakland Public Schools. At three of these schools, the Foundation provides funding for a “Wellness Champion”, a school and/or clinic employee who devotes time to improving students’ nutrition and fitness by focusing on: the school environment, wellness policies at the school, and encouraging students and their families to become more proactive in identifying and creating opportunities for positive change at their school. This is a five-year initiative that helps schools build the capacity of their health centers by providing support for a Wellness Champion and funding for programs identified by students, staff, and families.
Research. A recent national report highlighted the need to “support early-career faculty and encourage high-risk, high-reward, and potentially transformative research”. The Foundation has identified research in Alzheimer’s disease as a focus for this type of support. Since 2004 it has provided multi-year funding to the Buck Institute for Research on Aging, J. David Gladstone Institutes, and UCSF to ensure that early stage investigators can focus on their research to develop innovative treatments for Alzheimer’s and other aging diseases.
Staff
- Marcia Argyris, Senior Program Officer
- Kay Barthold, Senior Grants Manager
Program contact