Minnesota grants

The March of Dimes Minnesota Chapter has funded programs in all corners of Minnesota. Here is a look at the major community grants for the past few years.

Community Cooks

The program Appetite for Change for pregnant women and new moms to learn the benefit and basics of breastfeeding, introducing baby’s first foods and cooking meals for the whole family. Appetite for Change included teaching culinary basics, nutrition education and community mentoring to form a sold foundation from which women in the group will perceive fewer barriers to healthy eating for themselves and their children, while beginning to make behavior changes around cooking and eating. 

The Family Partnership

The Healthy Decisions program offerred group sessions to learn nutrition, weight management, & stress among low-income, high-risk pregnant & postpartum mothers. The program worked to fill a gap for isolated women in poverty by providing opportunities for social connection and peer networking with other women. 

Division of Indian Works Health Services

The Women of Traditional Birthing program provided culturally-appropriate information and activities for 50+ at-risk pregnant American Indian women and their families in the Twin Cities Metro Area to improve pregnancy outcomes.  These activities included home visiting/case management, three 10-week Prenatal Support Group sessions that incorporate traditional cultural information with modern methodologies for behavior change, family events, and outreach activities each year.

Pillager Family Center

Family Center Home Visiting Program did weekly home visits to provide education and services for first time parents. Weekly home visits were offered to provide education and services for first time parents and children, ages prenatal through three years old, to provide and promote premature birth risk reduction, and child abuse/neglect prevention. 

Everyday Miracles

Funding for Improving the Health of Babies program was used to expand and strengthen Everyday Miracles doula programs that are actively working to decrease racial and ethnic disparities in birth outcomes.

Hennepin Healthcare System

The Centering Pregnancy Group Prenatal Care program was used to strengthen and  ensure sustainability of the Centering Pregnancy Program at multiple Hennepin County Medical Center care sites, through accreditation process involving critical assessment of the program to date, additional training of staff, establishment of a system of data collection and  an increase in active program coordination at sites currently lacking this support. This is the first step toward being able, in the future, to measure increase in knowledge and behavior change as a result of this program.

ECHO Minnesota: prenatal education for immigrant/refugee women

Prenatal education for immigrant/refugee women through public television programming, website content, outreach events and activities, and collaboration with one or more prenatal care providers. Somali, Latino, Hmong, and White/American Indian women will be reached through programming that is language- and culture specific.

West Side Community Health Services: CenteringPregnancy Program

West Side Community Health Services seeks to increase access to high quality, evidence-based prenatal education, risk assessment, and supportive care and thereby improve birth outcomes and reduce health disparities for its largely low-income, minority patient population. Specifically, it proposed implementing the evidence-based Centering Pregnancy program at its two largest primary care sites – La Clinica and East Side Family Clinic. Over the course of two years through system redesign, training, group sessions, and evaluation with support of the Centering Healthcare Institute.

The Family Partnership: outreach to tornado victims

The Family Partnership will provide outreach, education, and support to pregnant women and families with young infants in North Minneapolis who were affected by the 2011 tornado. The goal of the project is to positively support the mental and physical health of pregnant mothers who were affected by the tornado to help improve birth outcomes and provide temporary sleeping units to families who have infants to help reduce the likelihood of infant deaths due to unsafe sleeping conditions.

Star Legacy Foundation: 2011 Stillbirth Summit

Funds will support a Stillbirth summit October 6-8 in Minneapolis, MN. The summit will consist of 2 parts. The first is a Stillbirth Research Roundtable featuring an international panel of researchers and organizations which focus on emerging areas of interest in the prevention of stillbirths. The second part, Let Every Star Shine will feature subsequent pregnancy, risks and bonding, healing arts, extended family grief support, stillbirth planning and options following diagnosis and parent/baby advocacy.

Cass Lake Indian Health Services: enhanced prenatal care for American Indian women

The goal of this project is to improve pregnancy outcomes and increase positive health behaviors among pregnant American Indian women. This will be achieved by adding a PHN to the prenatal team to provide case management and enhanced education and support services during prenatal and home visits.

Mayo Clinic: Somali CARES (Culturally Appropriate and Respectful Education and Support) Program for Pregnancy

Somali CARES Program is a prenatal care program developed specifically to provide enhanced education and support for Somali women in pregnancy. The program is based on the Centering Pregnancy model of group prenatal care and utilizes educational techniques from the Home Based Life Saving Skills program including story-telling, role-playing, and discussion of cultural practices related to health.

Open Cities Health Center, Inc.: Our Bodies Gossip

This program is designed to create a positive atmosphere for women of color to come together to discuss preconception health issues and to encourage women to make a preconception health plan.

Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa: Parent to Parent Mentor Program

The Fond du Lac Parent to Parent Mentor Program will provide culturally specific support to American Indian women during pregnancy, birth and postpartum by trained American Indian women. The Fond du Lac Parent to Parent Mentor will be trained as a birth doula, a postpartum doula and a breastfeeding peer helper.

Hennepin Health Care System: HCMC Centering Pregnancy Pilot Program

This program will provide training to providers and support staff who plan on utilizing the Centering Pregnancy model of prenatal care, which brings women together who are at the same state of pregnancy for assessment and support. The pilot program will be launched at 3 clinic sites and will enhance prenatal care services.

Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe Health Division: Saving our Future Generation

The availability of a culturally designed prenatal service to all women of the reservation that carefully blends traditional PHN prenatal services with Native American doula services in efforts to reduce the infant mortality rates of our reservation. This unique community based outreach program is designed to recruit participants who otherwise would choose to remain with customs and neglect prenatal care and choose a home birth not supported with education, health care referrals, or infant care services.

Regents of the University of Minnesota, Dept. of Ob/Gyn, MFM Division: reducing recurrent preterm birth in Minnesota through an educational DVD on use of 17P

To increase awareness of the indication of treatment with 17P (17 alpha hydroxyprogesterone caproate) and provide practitioners with concise review of the randomized controlled trials using 17P. The objective of this project is to develop a concise educational DVD that can be distributed to prenatal health care providers throughout the state that summarizes risk factors for preterm birth, indications for 17P 17P use and administration and recommended dose of 17P, and summary of clinical trials regarding 17P.

Give to help

Donation amount: