Abortion Access and Vasectomy Reimbursement – Ongoing
We work to raise awareness and money to reimburse up to $1000 per person for expenses to travel off island for abortions and vasectomies. Last year, 9-2018- 8-2019 we reimbursed $4,300, 11.80% of our total expenses, for women and men who need to travel off island for support. This fiscal year, $1968 for vasectomy and $593 for abortion, a total of 7.66% for 9 months of 2019 – 2020 expenses.
Monthly Tide Project
2023 Update: In 2022 we connected the Food Pantry with Dignity Matters of Framingham, MA, https://www.dignity-matters.org/ . They are providing all supplies to our island pantry patrons for free as we did and we are now providing menstrual supplies to the clinic and our high school. We also provide menstrual cups to the clinic for all community members. They are much more environmentally correct, and last for a year or more. Nothing disposable, completely re-usable, comfortable, and safe.
View this instruction video for information. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbbhxZQA1ps
Providing free menstrual products to women of the clinic and food pantry. Partnering with Conroy Apothecary first, and Cronigs. The board pledged to give $1000 a month to this project and the volume is also easier for Cronigs to handle. Board members were encouraged to contribute to this project and we have also hoped to raise funds for this as well. There is a board committee working on ways to raise awareness of this effort as well as raise dollars to fund it! We received a generous gift from a community member and when I met with the donors, they insisted that we use the money to “empower women” no other restrictions. We decided that we could use these funds for the monthly tide project, and we will keep our eye on other opportunities to use these funds!
In fy 2018 -2019 we raised $4149 and spent $3477. In the first 9 months of FY 2019 -2020, we raised $1050 and spent $5898.
Charitable Allocations – Ongoing
Let’s not leave fundraising out as a constant project! With these raised funds we supported the following:
High School Peer Sexual Health Educators program
FY18, 19, 20 – paused
Provide a grant for the High School Peer Sexual Health Educators program for 8+ students to help them engage and educate fellow students with a comprehensive “sex education that works” curriculum. Last year we gave Health Imperatives $8,070 for this important work. The first grant and successful year in the high school for this was 2018- 2019. We budgeted another year for the school yr. 2019-2020. Unfortunately, the high school was unable to have us participate in any way in the health curriculum, stating they were exploring the “Michigan Model”. They are studying this curriculum and we’ll see what our future might be in MVRHS. Betsy Edge, Clinic Director, was starting to work with the Y folks at Alex’s Place just before covid closed everything. Our budgeted dollars were never spent and we remain hopeful that the high school sees the benefits of this program.
Landlording
Thanks to the generous support of the island community, we own the building at 517 State Road and are the Landlords for the Family Planning, Health Imperatives Clinic.
Ongoing
Our continued efforts are to keep the rent low on the space used by the Sexual and Reproductive Health Clinic operated by Health Imperatives ($500 per month). Last year we also supplied the Clinic with $1,195 for equipment and paid a total of $4,455 for a year of regular cleaning. We also provide clinic staff with a discretionary fund, last year $4400 and this year $2300 which can be used for anything including training and conference attendance.
Act as good stewards of the property used by the Clinic by providing maintenance and upgrades. Last fiscal year we installed new windows ($6,454), new air conditioners ($1,790), and landscaping ($1,078). This year we will spend on landscaping and hope that the building and space requires no upgrades.
2019
Friends’ ability to rent to Health Imperatives for $500 per month saves them $4871.00 per month which is what the island’s 2019 commercial rental rate per square foot is. We are extremely proud of this. We increased our financial support of the clinicians who travel to the island to provide services. In our fiscal year 2019- 2020 we gave $7428 compared to $2200 for f/y 2018-2019. Many thanks to our donors who make this and all support of the clinic possible.
2021
This year marked important upgrades to our building. Due to considerable water damage over the years, we added a new roof, gutters, and trim on the outside. Fortunately, we share the total cost of $40,794 with the other condo unit owners by percentage of total space, leaving our cost at $13, 577.
2022
Continuing with water damage issues, we have engaged John C. Anderson for mold remediation in the clinic office. One exam room is back in perfect health for $5,118 and we will continue to fund this work for the remaining 7 office spaces as our budget allows.
Clinician Travel Reimbursement – Ongoing
We raise funds to pay the travel expenses of professional clinicians traveling to and from the island to care for the clinic’s clients. $2200 last year and $6985 this year; since spring 2019 when on island clinicians were not to be found! We were able to raise $3000 toward this year’s request thanks to the discretionary fund from a board member of the Tower Foundation.
