Pew gives Philadelphia’s Esperanza Health Center $4 million to expand in Kensington
The grant, to be paid over five years, will allow the health center to serve 2,000 more patients annually.
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Pew Charitable Trusts on Wednesday announced a five-year, $4 million grant to Esperanza Health Center, a North Philadelphia nonprofit that is expanding its medical, behavioral health and community services in Kensington and nearby neighborhoods.
The grant from Pew’s Fund for Health and Human Services will help Esperanza expand its primary care and substance use treatment programs to serve 2,000 additional patients a year as it adds two medical teams and an additional dental team in its Kensington location at the intersection of Allegheny and Kensington Avenues.
Nearby, Esperanza is about to open a new, four-story Community Health & Wellness Center, to expand its reach with classes to help people improve their diets, a conference center, an exercise room, and a gym for youths to have a safe place to play, said Susan Post, Esperanza’s chief executive.
The Pew grant is not for the building, which cost about $11 million, but rather will help add staff who will run the programs in the new building. As many as 30 people will be hired for the health center and for the wellness center, adding to the current total of 230 Esperanza employees, Post said.
Esperanza is focused not just on the people who show up in the clinic, Post said.
“What about the people who are in the neighborhood who maybe don’t have a doctor and maybe they are not even sick yet, but they have no place to safely exercise? They can’t walk around because there’s so much violence out there,” Post said. “We’re just trying to build more community because we think community has a lot to do with how a person is healthy.”
Pew has had a long-term relationship with Esperanza, having made grants to help the nonprofit integrate behavioral health into primary care, said Kristin Romens, director of the Pew Fund for Health and Human Services. Esperanza has consistently met or exceeded those grants’ goals, she said.
The $4 million is the largest amount awarded by the Pew fund managed by Romens. It’s part of a Pew effort to get money into the coffers of health and human services organizations that have “ambitious growth plans” and a “track record of providing high-quality, effective services,” Romens said.