PICAYUNE, Miss.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The AstraZeneca HealthCare Foundation’s Connections for Cardiovascular HealthSM program today announced a grant of $152,763 to Manna Ministries Inc. to support its Heart 2 Heart Initiative.
The Heart 2 Heart Initiative aims to engage the community and collaborate in improving cardiovascular disease awareness, while improving the quality of care and patient education through community outreach in the delivery of screening, treatment and heart-healthy lifestyle support. The initiative uses four key approaches: raising awareness of cardiovascular risk factors; emphasizing the benefits of small changes; providing ongoing reinforcement of the program as part of a participant’s medical home, and promoting collaborative decision making between participants and medical teams when it comes to self-care management of chronic diseases.
“We are very excited that we can play a part with this initiative to change the quality of our patients’ lives,” said Jameye Martin, CEO, Manna Ministries. “We thank the AstraZeneca HealthCare Foundation for making it possible for us to embark upon this life-changing outreach to the communities we serve.”
Heart disease accounts for 26 percent of all deaths in Mississippi and 25 percent of all deaths in Louisiana, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.1 The grant from the AstraZeneca HealthCare Foundation will help Manna Ministries to reduce cardiovascular disease among uninsured and underinsured populations in southern Mississippi and Louisiana.
“Cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of death in the United States, and organizations like Manna Ministries are creating innovative programs to help prevent and decrease the associated risks with this devastating disease,” said James W. Blasetto, M.D., MPH, FACC, chairman of the AstraZeneca HealthCare Foundation. “We are grateful to Manna Ministries for its commitment to improving heart health in their community.”
The Connections for Cardiovascular HealthSM program annually awards grants of $150,000 or more to U.S.-based nonprofit organizations working to improve cardiovascular health in local communities. This year, the program awarded nearly $3.7 million in grants to 19 organizations. More than $14 million in grants have been awarded through the program since its inception in 2010.
Organizations can learn more and apply online for a Connections for Cardiovascular HealthSM grant at www.astrazeneca-us.com/foundation. Applications must be submitted online no later than 5 p.m. EST on Feb. 27, 2014.
About Manna Ministries Inc.
Since its founding in 1999, Manna Ministries has provided more than $4 million in services and assistance to impoverished families in the community in and around the city of Picayune. Its clinic provides the uninsured with general primary care, diagnostic laboratory services, and urgent medical care. In addition, the clinic helps patients with enrollment paperwork for programs that enable patients to receive free or reduced rate prescription medications. Manna Ministries also provides food and clothing to approximately 600 families every week. Learn more at www.mannaministry.net.
About AstraZeneca HealthCare Foundation
Established in 1993, the AstraZeneca HealthCare Foundation is a Delaware not-for-profit corporation and a 501(c)(3) entity organized for charitable purposes, including to promote public awareness of healthcare issues, to promote public education of medical knowledge, and to support or contribute to charitable and qualified exempt organizations consistent with its charitable purpose. Connections for Cardiovascular HealthSM was launched in 2010 through a charitable contribution of $25 million from AstraZeneca.
1 Murphy, S.L., Xu, J., & Kochanek, K.D. Deaths: Final data for 2010. National vital statistics reports; vol 61 no 4, 85-86. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2013.
