Dental care for uninsured. Workforce transport. Grants boost Lowcountry nonprofits
Only one piece of the puzzle was missing.
Bluffton-Jasper Volunteers in Medicine, which provides health care to people without insurance, wanted to open a dental clinic in an under-utilized space in the back of its Plantation Park Drive facility.
Community members and local organizations had chipped in to help build the clinic, which would provide preliminary care to the dozens of uninsured patients who showed up. Each month, the clinic refers 25 clients to local dentists because the clinic doesn’t have the equipment to provide care, executive director Pam Toney said.
The clinic needed an X-ray machine.
“We really weren’t sure we would be able to get it,” Toney said.
But then the Community Foundation of the Lowcountry awarded Volunteers in Medicine $35,000 to buy the machine. The clinic is slated to open in late January and is now seeking volunteers.
“We think we have a pretty state-of-the-art dental clinic,” Toney said.
VIM is one of four recipients of recent grants from the Community Foundation — a Hilton Head Island-based philanthropy that pools funding for organizations in Beaufort, Jasper, Hampton and Colleton counties. The organization awarded $211,500 total to Beaufort and Jasper County organizations this month as part of its biannual competitive grants cycle. All, a press release states, are aimed at promoting racial and social justice.
Among the other recipients is Ridgeland-based Antioch Education Center, which helps meet the basic needs of low-income families in Beaufort, Jasper and Hampton counties. It received $110,000 from the Community Foundation of the Lowcountry to buy two 25-passenger vans to transport workers from Jasper County to southern Beaufort County.
Many low-wage workers spend countless hours and dollars commuting between Hilton Head and Jasper County, and public transportation can be unreliable.
The vans, the foundation said, will offer workers more convenient times and routes, allowing them “less time on the bus and more time with their families.”
Neighborhood Outreach Connection, which provides educational programs, workforce development and health screenings to low-income neighborhoods in Beaufort County, was another grant recipient. It received $50,000 to equip a new educational facility on the north end of Hilton Head Island.
The space will house an all-day, staffed program for students enrolled in virtual learning, freeing up time for parents to work.
And the Hilton Head Symphony Orchestra received $16,500 to collaborate with members of the Gullah community for monthly performance events and visual art shows.
Some of the performances, HHSO president and chief executive officer Alan Jordan said, will take place at the orchestra’s Coligny Beach venue, SoundWaves. Others will take place at community centers within Gullah neighborhoods on the island and at schools.
Part of the money from the grant will help pay transportation costs so people can get to the different venues.
“We want to break down barriers to attendance,” Jordan said. “Sometimes it’s not geographic distance, but also cultural distance. ... This is such a small island that it would be nice to bring people together.”
The performances are slated to kick off in July. Artists interested in taking part reach Jordan at ajordan@hhso.org.
