The Hogg Foundation, along with two partner foundations, has awarded $6.5 million in grant funding over five years to 11 organizations to improve mental health, resilience, and well-being in rural and rural border communities. The Strengthening the Mental Health of Rural and Rural Border Communities initiative will build on community strengths and foster community-driven solutions to create, support, celebrate, and promote mental well-being.
Ten Texas-based organizations from rural or rural border communities have been awarded $375,000 for each of 12 project sites to create or build on an existing community collaborative. An 11th organization, Texas A&M School of Public Health Rural Impact through Support and Evaluation, was awarded $2 million to coordinate a learning community of the twelve sites and provide mentorship, advice, coaching, and technical assistance to the collaboratives.
Two of the funded organizations, Aspire a Mindful Place and Panhandle Community Services, operate project sites that are being funded in partnership with Amarillo Area Foundation and Bivins Foundation, respectively.
The selected communities are in areas of Texas marked by limited access to mental health services and poorer mental health outcomes, within regions designated as mental health professional shortage areas. For the purposes of the grant, “rural” is defined as communities with a population of less than 50,000 people as of the 2020 Census. “Rural border” is defined as communities with a population of less than 50,000 people as of the 2020 Census and within 62.5 miles of the Texas-Mexico border.
“This initiative encourages local leadership and collaborative community efforts,” says Dr. Octavio N. Martinez, Jr., executive director of the Hogg Foundation. “It aims to support and strengthen partnerships between local organizations and involve community residents, so that by working together and building on what they already do well, they can strengthen mental health, resilience, and well-being in their communities.”
“Rural areas, especially those along the Texas-Mexico border, have rich cultures and a deep-rooted spirit of community,” says Rick Ybarra, senior program officer for the Hogg Foundation. “These collaboratives will serve as exemplars and sites of innovation to improve community mental health along the border and rural communities throughout Texas.”
A significant focus of the initiative is to involve the entire community – not just sector leaders but also community members with lived mental health experience.
“Our grantee partners are deeply committed to elevating community voices, especially those historically not included in leadership and decision-making, because true innovative progress happens when every perspective is heard and valued,” says Tammy Heinz, senior program officer and consumer and family liaison for the Hogg Foundation.
The new initiative builds on the success of the foundation’s Collaborative Approaches to Well-being in Rural Communities initiative which fostered broad-based community-led approaches for strengthening mental well-being in Bastrop, Brooks, Morris, Nacogdoches, and Victoria counties.
The eleven new grantee partners are: