St. Gerard House (SGH) has received a $226,000 grant from Dogwood Health Trust to expand internal capacity in preparation of a future campus project.
This infusion of funding creates three (3) full time jobs in the WNC region and builds the internal infrastructure necessary to scale up services as SGH moves to build a 10-acre campus in the coming years.
The CDC reports 1 in 39 children in North Carolina are diagnosed with autism. This growing population lacks necessary medical services in WNC and SGH is here to fill the gap. Caroline Long, Chief Executive Officer shares “this grant will allow SGH to expand our capacity to serve more families in Western North Carolina by preparing us to scale up our services.” Dogwood Health Trust will allow St. Gerard House to continue this practice and expand to serve more children and youth with autism.
St. Gerard House’s mission is to help individuals with autism and their families experience more joy and achieve meaningful life outcomes. All St. Gerard House programs are based in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) techniques that apply familiar concepts, such as reinforcement, prompting and generalizing, in systematic ways to teach skills and to replace problem behaviors with more functional ones.
Dogwood Health Trust is a private foundation based in Asheville, North Carolina with the sole purpose of dramatically improving the health and well-being of all people and communities of 18 counties and the Qualla Boundary in Western North Carolina. Dogwood Health Trust focuses on innovative and equitable ways to address the many factors that contribute to overall health and wellness. With a focus on housing, education, economic opportunity and access to care and health resources, Dogwood Health Trust works to create a Western North Carolina where every generation can live, learn, earn and thrive, with dignity and opportunity for all, no exceptions. To learn more, please visit www.dht.org.