The OHSU Knight Cancer Institute has announced grant funding to 17 community-led projects around the state for its Community Partnership Program. The latest round of funding, totaling $320,000, supports 13 new and 4 previously funded projects that target a diverse range of cancer types and demographics. Many of the newly funded entities will develop programs to reach Latino, African-American, American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian and LGBTQ communities.
Since the program’s inception in 2014, the Knight Cancer Institute Community Partnership Program has distributed more than $2 million in funding opportunities throughout the state of Oregon. The program offers multiple tiers of funding to support local organizations in identifying and developing tools to address a local cancer-related need.
“I continue to be so pleased with the commitment of organizations and communities from around our state to tackle really challenging areas of cancer prevention and survivorship,” said Jackilen Shannon, Ph.D., R.D., co-director of the community partnership program and associate director of community outreach and engagement. “We once again have had an amazing opportunity to fund excellent programs that reach a variety of people from around our state.”
The Asian Health & Service Center received a new grant to help further the center’s goal to increase culturally and linguistically appropriate cancer resources, educational materials, and support services available to the Asian communities in Oregon.
“I don’t know how many times my patients have asked me, ‘Why do I have cancer?’ It happens to our neighbors, to our friends, to our families and even to ourselves. Sickness, has no color, it has no religion. Sickness does not discriminate,” said Erik Szeto, D.O., founder and chairman of the board at the Asian Health & Service Center. “The only fairness to this unfairness is that we are given a choice, a choice to respond. The Asian Health & Service Center’s House of Love and Kindness was built on this ideal. In this house, we will do whatever it takes, to give healing and hope. And this grant from the Knight Cancer Institute’s Community Partnership Program will help us support the Asian communities in Oregon in their fight against cancer.”
Organizations receiving grants in this funding cycle include:
- Adelante Mujeres
- Asian Health & Service Center (AHSC)*
- Cascade AIDS Project
- Care Partners Hospice and Palliative
- Coos County Oregon State University Extension Family & Community Health
- Mittleman Jewish Community Center
- Marion-Polk Food Share Inc.*
- Native American Rehabilitation Association of the Northwest, Inc. (NARA)
- Northwest Sarcoma Foundation*
- Oregon Cancer Foundation
- Oregon State University: Health Promotion & Health Behavior*
- Oregon Institute of Technology
- Oregon School-Based Health Alliance (OSBHA)
- The Public Health Foundation of Columbia County
- St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church
- Umatilla County Public Health
- Urban League of Portland
Click here to learn more about the projects funded.
