CAPTION: Cindy Donner, executive director of East Hillside Patch and Jennifer Zapata, youth director, stand in front of their offices at 1406 E. Second St.East Hillside Patch is celebrating ten years as an organization striving to help residents make this neighborhood a good place to live. A group of East Hillside Community Club neighbors formed Patch in 1997 to address the needs of residents.
The idea of using the word “Patch” comes from a similar program that the founders heard about in England and refers to a patch of ground.
Patch has many programs including summer and after-school programs for children, a gardening project, and two projects which include canvassing the neighborhood to ask residents about their needs. These projects are the Health Equity Project and the Community Assessment Project.
Open your door to speak
your mind
Starting in September, University of Minnesota, Duluth (UMD) students and volunteers will knock on doors to ask questions for a Community Assessment Project. This survey is comprehensive and will collect information on all areas of living. The questionnaire was designed by the Wilder Foundation. Cindy Donner, executive director of Patch, said the Wilder Foundation is a leading edge organization and their surveys are considered “best practices.”
The survey includes questions with ratings. Questions include: “Do you have….“A doctor you can go to?’ Enough money to buy clothing and other necessities?” “Help with household chores?’ “Support in raising grandchildren or another relative’s child?” “Reliable transportation?”
Organizations such as United Way, Neighborhood Housing Services, CHUM and LISC are also involved in this survey which will be conducted in the Central Hillside and Lincoln Park neighborhoods as well as East Hillside.
The Wilder Foundation will provide training for conducting the survey. After the door-to-door survey is completed the information will be sent to the Wilder Foundation for analysis.
Donner said, “Patch has always organized around people’s needs.” So much has changed (in the last ten years.) Some needs have changed.
When the results are back neighbors will convene to decide how Patch should move forward.
Health Equity Project
Earlier this year, from January through April, nursing students from the College of St. Scholastica (CSS) visited various neighborhood places and centers to connect with low-income people and administer a survey which was part of the Health Equity Project. The students asked people about their specific challenges with the health care system, especially issues relating to payment and insurance.
Donner says she hopes this project will generate more political will to put pressure on the decision-makers to make changes in health care payment and insurance systems. Currently Patch has several people who are willing to tell their personal stories to the public.
Stories include: being denied care because they didn’t have the $1.00 co-pay needed the day they arrived for their appointment; being told that a medical procedure was covered only to discover, after receiving care, that it was denied coverage. Other issues include changes to the coverage without informing the recipients or so much paperwork that a person who is already ill feels defeated before even filling out the paperwork; and for some, problems reading or understanding the paperwork.
“A lot of M. D.’s are just as frustrated by the system,” said Donner. She spoke of one physician who was a speaker at a recent state forum on rural health care. This physician said she is paid more to remove a wart than to consult with a patient.
Donner says some people have ended up homeless because of their illness and the lack of coverage to treat the illness and the mounting bills. Patch offices are located at 1406 E. Second St., Suite B. Phone Patch 218-728-4287.
