Mercy Hospital Joplin becomes second One Joplin sponsor
Sep. 15—A volunteer-driven organization that was created in the aftermath of the Joplin tornado received a financial boost Wednesday from one of Joplin's largest employers.
Administrators with Mercy Hospital Joplin handed One Joplin officials a check for $25,000, becoming the organization's second corporate sponsor. Earlier this year, Freeman Health System officials donated $225,000 to One Joplin, to be spaced out in $75,000 annual installments over the next three years.
"We're really excited about the local support," said Nicole Brown, One Joplin's executive director. "It really makes sense for Freeman and Mercy to be partners with us. Every area that we focus on impacts health, whether it's poverty or literacy or human services; all of these areas impact people's health."
Established seven years ago to increase community collaboration on key issues like poverty and literacy, One Joplin is slowly transitioning from an organization primarily funded by grants to one that's privately funded.
"In the grant world, it's great in theory, but the tail ends up wagging the dog," Brown said. Through local, private funding, "we can quickly and efficiently meet the needs identified in our community and build momentum as we go."
For example, the Mercy money will be used specifically by One Joplin's literacy team members to create and print out pro-reading stickers that will be placed inside the children's and adult books they've collected over time. These books will then make their way to local literacy agencies and inside blessing boxes.
The stickers may seem like a simple endeavor, Brown said, but it could help boost literacy. She said families living in poverty usually own between zero to just three age-appropriate books in their households.
By giving away free books, each with a sticker promoting local literacy programs, "we are trying to meet the needs where they are," she said.
Aaron Lewis, community health and access director with Mercy, described their partnership with One Joplin as great.
"Our sponsorship helps them continue their work," he said. He added that Mercy has been involved with One Joplin since its inception. "The great thing about One Joplin is they are a collaborative of other nonprofits ... that try to tackle barriers to community health needs."
In 2015, the United Way of Southwest Missouri and Southeast Kansas, the Joplin Area Chamber of Commerce Foundation and the Joplin Regional Community Foundation pooled their financial resources to create One Joplin, Brown said, with the idea of continuing the momentum and collaboration seen during the first five years after the 2011 storm.
The organization is a community collaboration of more than 100 area nonprofits, Brown said.
The collaboration has teams that focus on specific community needs — poverty, human services, literacy and health.
"It's very important," Brown said, "that we get these groups together every month to talk about what's going on in their agencies and to also talk about what projects we could do as a group that would be more effective for all of us to pool our resources and to help our community."
