ST. LOUIS - Mercy is providing half a million dollars in grants to more than 35 organizations serving children, elderly, homeless and uninsured people across five states.

Now in its 37th year, the purpose of Mercy Caritas (Latin for “charity”) grants is to provide support for community-based programs consistent with Mercy’s mission and vision that are aligned with an identified community health need.

Of the $500,000 awarded, $450,000 goes toward Mercy Caritas grants, while $50,000 in grants were awarded to Sisters of Mercy working to directly serve people in poverty. This funding will help provide services to more than 220,000 people.

Arkansas

Fayetteville

• Arkansas United – Arkansas United plans to adapt its Spanish-speaking community navigator model and implement a wraparound services approach to educate, grow, support and refer ethnic providers to improve mental health outcomes among Northwest Arkansas immigrants, particularly mothers.

Fort Smith

• Hamilton Center for Child Advocacy – The center will expand its therapy program by adding support services that improve therapy referrals, scheduling and coordination, ensuring timely, trauma-informed mental health care for children and families affected by abuse.
• Heart to Heart Pregnancy and Family Care Center – The program is designed to help fathers develop engaging and positive relationships with their children and family and to help mothers in their postpartum journey. Fathers participate in classes and have a mentor to walk alongside them while mothers learn how to achieve overall physical, mental and emotional wellness.

Hot Springs

• Cooper-Anthony Mercy Child Advocacy Center – The center improves the lives of abused children by providing them with a safe place where services are provided to begin the healing process. The supervisor of development serves clients and supports services by securing essential resources, raising community awareness and developing community partnerships.
• St. John’s Catholic School – The school’s playground is for students age 3 through 8th grade in addition to children who attend church-related activities. Some funding will replace several pieces of old equipment for safety reasons. Funded improvements will align with Arkansas Department of Human Services requirements for preschoolers. The focus is on safe equipment that encourages exercise and fitness.

Little Flock

• Children’s Advocacy Center of Benton County – The project will equip the Children & Family Advocacy Center mental health team with irreplaceable training to better support victims of trauma. Funding will cover the cost of two training programs: child and family traumatic stress intervention training and youth mental health first aid instructor certifications.

Rogers

• Samaritan Community Center – The center provides quality, no-cost behavioral and mental health counseling services to clients with household incomes less than 250% of the federal poverty level. It complements a wraparound services model by providing clients with access to other program services including food, social services, clothing, dental care and educational classes.

Louisiana

Metairie

• Mercy Family Center – Mercy Family Center’s Project Fleur-de-lis will create and present a 2.0 version of its trauma-informed, suicide prevention risk assessment and safety planning training to mental health professionals who are consistently asked to assess students for suicidal ideation and determine the need for hospitalization.

New Orleans

• Mercy Endeavors – Funding will ensure low income, struggling members of Mercy Endeavors Senior Center are properly nourished and educated on healthy eating habits by providing a healthy, freshly prepared breakfast five days a week.

Missouri

Cassville

• Life Change SWMO – Life Change’s purpose is to create a Christian community where people are encouraged and equipped to overcome addictions and other hindrances to move forward into wholeness and live their full potential.

Festus

• Jefferson County YMCA – The number of active older adult members 55 and older at the Jefferson County YMCA has steadily increased since the pandemic ended. The Y is committed to supporting this population’s pursuit of opportunities to improve themselves physically, mentally and spiritually; maintain their health and independence; and negotiate the challenges aging can bring.

Joplin

• Children’s Haven – This center provides safe, nurturing care and shelter for children through age 17 while families navigate crisis. Through care and case management, they support families facing hospitalization, medical treatments or mental health needs. By caring for children, Children’s Haven removes a key barrier, ensuring access to essential health services.
• Higher Power Garage – The organization serves the low-income population in Joplin and surrounding communities with low-cost vehicles and vehicle repair services. Their purpose is to provide safe, reliable transportation at an affordable price for those in need.
• St. Peter the Apostle Outreach House – Located in a lower-income neighborhood, St. Peter serves meals to the unhoused and people on fixed or no income.
• The Watered Gardens – This center offers recuperative care for unhoused patients discharging from the hospital. Often already health-compromised, these patients are more likely than the average person to experience hospitalization and yet lack a safe place to finish recovery after they are discharged.

Lebanon

• Free Store Storefront – This program serves as initial point of contact for the organization. Its purpose is to address basic human needs in emergent situations by providing food, clothing, hygiene, shower and laundry facilities, warming and cooling stations, transportation, housing and other resources.
• L-Life Food Pantry – Their mission is to improve the value of life for families in Laclede County by providing quality food and helping with nutritional deficits for those in need. Their clients rely on their support with rising food costs.

St. Louis

• Aging Ahead – Aging Ahead provides essential programs and services to its four-county service area: St. Louis, St. Charles, Jefferson and Franklin counties. Funding supports essential incontinence and nutritional supplies to caregivers, addressing a critical unmet community health need and alleviating financial burdens, ensuring recipients maintain dignity, hygiene and proper nutrition. Funding will also support access to non-permanent durable medical equipment such as grab bars, shower chairs or ramps.
• Feed My People – The organization’s Christian Faith in Transformation utilizes trained staff to conduct assessments for clients. Identifying clients’ social determinants of health needs enables Feed My People to assists individuals who require housing, utilities, transportation, access to health care, mental and behavioral health problems and/or are experiencing food insecurity.
• Food Outreach – Food Outreach provides free medically tailored food boxes to food-insecure patients receiving treatment for congestive heart failure. Boxes contain heart-healthy, shelf-stable foods, along with educational materials to help patients utilize, shop for and incorporate heart-healthy foods into their diet.
• Mercy Professional Services – The program provides free or low-fee counseling to community members in need.
• Nurses for Newborns – Funding supports this collaboration of 19 child-serving organizations dedicated to ending preventable sleep-related infant deaths in the St. Louis region. Nurses for Newborns conducts a comprehensive, in-home nurse visiting program, providing access to health care, parenting education and linkage to critical resources for medically fragile, at-risk, low-income and underserved infants and mothers/caregivers. Services are voluntary and free of charge.
• PreventEd – PreventEd’s Certified Peer Specialist Program connects adults living with or at risk for substance use disorder to medication-assisted treatment services, behavioral therapies, recovery support and psychosocial services in coordination with certified peer specialists, people who have been successful in the recovery process who help others experiencing similar situations.
• Queen of Peace Center – The center’s purpose is to provide family-centered care for individuals with substance-use disorders, their families and at-risk youth through treatment, prevention, education and housing. Funding will also support the Zero Suicide Initiative at St. Philippine Home, a long-term residential program for pregnant and postpartum women and their children.

Washington

• Foundations for Franklin County – The organization’s purpose is to educate, develop processes and connect community resources to those in need through their Connecting the GAP program. Communities are an essential part of society because everyone depends on and interacts with each other and helps individuals learn and develop new ideas.  
• Peace Lutheran Church – Funding will support the Weather Relief Center, which provides unhoused people in the community with a safe space out of the heat or cold. Guests receive a meal, access to restrooms, toiletries and sleeping accommodations when predicted overnight temperatures are below freezing or dangerously high. 

Oklahoma

Ada

• Compassion Outreach Center – The center provides medical, dental, pharmaceutical, vision and behavioral health services for residents of Pontotoc County who do not have access to health insurance. This includes direct services to patients with chronic conditions. Funding will reduce health inequities and promote health and wellness care for patients.
• Irving Community Center – The center offers senior adults monthly wellness sessions featuring health education, brain teasers, recipes, exercise and fun games. Geared toward seniors’ needs and physical abilities, it empowers them to improve health, engage socially and access resources like mobile health services and an elder health fair.

Ardmore

• Ardmore Behavioral Health Collaborative/Lighthouse Behavioral Wellness Centers – This group supports the Ardmore Bridges initiative, which uses the Bridges Out of Poverty framework to empower individuals to break the cycle of poverty and engages the community to create a place where hope can grow into reality. The initiative addresses both individuals experiencing poverty and the broader community with workshops and classes.
• East Ardmore Revitalization – Funding benefits the Elderly Homeowners Assistance Program, which was created to address the need for assistance for senior adults who own their own home and live in low-income areas of Ardmore. This program works to prevent home condemnation due to dilapidation and decreases the possibility of homelessness and displacement of the senior population.
• The Grace Center of Southern Oklahoma – The program promotes community well-being by preventing homelessness and utility disconnections for households struggling with economic marginalization. Through compassionate support and emergency financial aid, the program addresses urgent needs that often lead to poor health outcomes, fostering dignity, stability and hope for under-resourced neighbors.

Oklahoma City

• Cardinal Community House – Cardinal Community House is a respite care center that provides the unsheltered an environment for healing. Unsheltered individuals are often left with few options when dealing with a chronic, sudden or significant medical issue. Many manageable, treatable or preventable conditions are made worse without the proper environment for recuperation.

Tishomingo

• Our Neighbor’s Cupboard – The local food bank in Johnston County shares its cupboard with low-income residents of the county, supplying nutrition of both food and faith so when clients walk out the door, they leave with food wrapped in the warmth of God's love.

Texas

Alamo

• ARISE – “How’s Your 5?” is a program in Alamo that is developed and supported by Dr. Doug Walker at Mercy Family Center – Metairie in Louisiana that provides resources to meet community mental health needs and respects the whole being of each participant. Participants provide feedback and have reported many in the community suffered from symptoms of depression.

Laredo

• Casa de Misericordia – Because economic independence and stability are major protective factors from domestic violence, this program supports domestic violence survivors and their children to meet work and school requirements for uniforms, shoes and supplies so they can focus on financial safety and freedom and create a safe, healthy, stable life.
• Mercy Ministries of Laredo – This community outreach program will continue to utilize community health care workers to serve uninsured adults who are patients and/or persons needing a medical home. Staff members work closely with communities and neighborhoods to recruit new patients and conduct educational opportunities to manage self-care, screening for their families and community residents.
• Sisters of Mercy Ministries Laredo – This program provides monthly distribution of non-perishables to clinic patients and individuals who have received services at Casa de Misericordia or the Education Center and who experience food insecurity.