The Hispanic Federation has awarded El Centro de Corazón, an accomplished Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) with 4 locations in Houston’s East End, awards totaling $75,000 to support the health centers’ COVID-19 frontline efforts.

The awards come from two different funds established by the Hispanic Federation. The $25,000 gift comes from the Hispanic Federation Nonprofit Emergency Assistance Fund to support El Centro’s ongoing COVID-19 emergency response services. With these funds, El Centro utilized four medical assistants to administer and expand COVID-19 testing, as well as to provide PPE to staff and patients. The fund initially launched in March 2020 in partnership with the Miranda Family as a direct response to COVID-19, targeting organizations that help the most vulnerable and impacted segments of the Latino community.

The $50,000 award comes from the Hispanic Federation’s newly launched Vaccine Immunization Dosage Awareness (VIDA) Initiative. The VIDA Initiative aims to help Latino-serving community health centers, also known as FQHCs, across the U.S. get Latinos vaccinated against the coronavirus. The initiative started with an initial allocation of one million dollars. El Centro was one of the first 14 grant organizations to receive funding from the VIDA Initiative across six states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia.

The VIDA Initiative funds will cover costs associated with El Centro’s vaccination operations, including staff needed to administer vaccinations and all expenses around outreach, program expansion, information technology, and patient case management.

Latinos are three to four times as likely as other U.S. residents to become infected, be hospitalized, and die from COVID-19. Overrepresented among frontline workers, they risk exposure every day – yet may face numerous barriers to vaccination – among them a lack of health insurance, limited English proficiency, no internet access, a distrust of the healthcare system due to past mistreatment, and fear that obtaining medical assistance could be used to deny them citizenship or lead to arrest or deportation. In recent surveys, as many as 40% of Latino adults have said they probably or definitely would not get vaccinated.

El Centro was founded in 1994 in Houston’s predominantly Latino East End area and has provided trusted, quality health care to its patients for over 27 years. The Hispanic Federation’s generous awards will immediately positively impact thousands of patient families in Houston, as El Centro works toward building greater pandemic-specific health care access for its patients and service area.

About El Centro de Corazón

Founded in 1994, El Centro de Corazón (El Centro) is an accomplished Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) with four health center locations in Houston’s East End and offers a comprehensive range of adult and pediatric health care services for the underserved, uninsured, and underinsured, which includes primary care and family medicine, women’s health, dental, and behavioral health services. El Centro also provides ancillary services to assist patients to overcome barriers to accessing health care. In 2019, El Centro provided direct patient care to 12,978 low-income children and adults for a total of 46,595 patient visits. For more information, visit www.elcentrodecorazon.org