Homelessness, food insecurity, drug and alcohol addiction, depression, public safety, literacy, and on. The challenges faced by our patients often stretch beyond acute medical care, yet they also play a role in health outcomes and quality of life.
At Temple University Hospital – Jeanes Campus, ongoing support for the community comes in the form of yearly funding for local non-profit organizations who are working to alleviate some of the burden posed by these challenges.
On the evening of May 28, 2025, community leaders gathered with TUH-Jeanes Campus administrators along with board members of the Anna T. Jeanes Foundation and members of the TUH-Jeanes Campus Community Advisory Board in the Cheltenham Friends Meetinghouse on the hospital’s campus. They were invited there to be recognized for their work as recipients of the TUH-Jeanes Campus 2024-2025 Community Grant Program.
“We are always amazed at the good things that people are doing right here in our community and heartened by your commitment to this important work,” said Elly Reinhardt, Chair of the TUH-Jeanes Campus Community Advisory Board and a board member of the Anna T. Jeanes Foundation.
This year, the program bestowed 20 local community groups with grants totaling $52,000, given by the Anna T. Jeanes Foundation.
“While we provide advanced academic care as part of Temple Health, we are also a community hospital in the truest sense,” noted Matt Shelak, OTR/L, MBA, Executive Director, TUH-Jeanes Campus, who was on hand to honor this year’s grant recipients. “We are proud to partner in such a meaningful way with local leaders to help elevate our community.”
The local groups represent a wide demographic range across the TUH-Jeanes Campus service region but share many commonalities in addressing such issues as poverty, addiction, elder care, education, access to health screenings, and the need for mental health support.
Anna T. Jeanes: A Legacy of Service to the Community
The foundation that bears her name continues the important work that Anna Thomas Jeanes championed during her life. Its support of the Community Grant Program has funded innovative work in our area for more than 20 years. Each year, the foundation solicits a call for proposals, and the TUH-Jeanes Campus Community Advisory Board selects projects that best match up with the hospital’s Community Health Needs Assessment.
The namesake of Temple University Hospital – Jeanes Campus (originally Jeanes Hospital), Anna T. Jeanes was a philanthropist and social activist, born into a wealthy Quaker family on April 7, 1822 in Philadelphia. Passionate about health care and education, she devoted herself to causes focused on the health and social welfare of others.
At a time when hospitals often were regarded with fear—known as places where infection and disease spread rampantly—she envisioned a facility where the sick and dying could receive more specialized, humane care. She created an endowment upon her death in 1907 to build a hospital for “those with cancerous, nervous, and disabling ailments” that would operate according to the Quaker philosophy of treating each patient compassionately, as a whole person.
Jeanes Hospital opened in 1928, built on Anna’s family farm. Years later, the clinical services and research that continue on this site reflect her progressive thinking—carried forth by the synergistic relationship between TUH-Jeanes Campus and Fox Chase Cancer Center.
In addition, the endowment funds set up by Anna T. Jeanes have supported other causes of importance to her. Beneficiaries included the Jeanes Supervisors program, the precursor to the Negro Rural School Fund, which educated many African American teachers and students across the Southern states.
A historical marker, erected by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission in 2018, pays tribute to Anna T. Jeanes, celebrating her achievements and legacy. It proudly stands near the Central Ave. entrance to TUH-Jeanes Campus.
Community Grant Recipients 2024-2025
Grant presentations this year were made by Reinhardt, Shelak, and Joe Evans, Treasurer of the Anna T. Jeanes Foundation Board, in support of the following community recipients:
AIM Angels In Motion
Funding will help AIM in its mission to assist individuals suffering from addiction. This group provides up to three weeks of rent in a recovery house, groceries, basic care items, and clothing if needed. The group also assists those on the streets with self-care wound care items.
Burholme Emergency Medical Services/VMSC Emergency Medical Services
Funding will support outreach efforts to help community organizations, schools, and churches with health education and training. This includes the “Stop the Bleed” program to provide skills and hands-on training on controlling bleeding in the emergency setting, American Heart Association Compression-Only CPR/AED training, instruction on recognizing the early of signs and symptoms of a stroke, and Narcan training for the layperson.
Cheltenham Jayvees Inc. – Cheltenham Sports
Funding will support efforts in planning two new soccer programs for children.
eCLOSE Institute
Funding will support the participation of 400 students in eCLOSE classroom research and continuing partnerships with schools, supporting students to continue their research journeys, empowering them to address their community health needs, and supporting them in pursuing careers in biomedical research and health.
Family Promise of Philadelphia – Philadelphia Interfaith Hospitality Network
Funding will support this group’s work to eliminate homelessness among Northeast Philadelphia families, including access to emergency housing and/or other emergency needs and providing housing case management.
Feast for Friends
Funding will support efforts to help as many people in the community as possible with healthy food donations. The group cooks, packages, and distributes meals weekly along with breakfast bags to the homebound and seniors in addition to operating a food pantry.
Fox Chase Town Watch
Funding will support this group’s efforts to keep the community safe and free of blight by purchasing paint, solvents, and other graffiti removal supplies as well as materials to help with street beautification projects. Support will also go to the Town Watch hotline, which serves as a resource for neighbors to report concerns.
Germantown Avenue Crisis Ministry
Funding will help this organization to support clients living in the 19126-zip code who are in need of financial assistance to prevent eviction, foreclosure, utility shut-off, or to address other essential needs.
GROW (Northeast Community Services)
Funding will help provide scholarships to purchase course materials and cover registration fees for students in need of assistance, and to support program pantries providing students with no-cost access to grocery essentials.
Historic Fair Hill
Funding will help offset the costs of this group’s GROW Healthy Initiative, which supports Fair Hill’s children and families in a variety of nature-and garden-based activities. Designed to address social determinants of health, these activities provide engaging educational opportunities and improve overall wellness.
La Famiglia dei Fratelli
Funding will support cooking/packaging meals at Caring for Friends, preparing sandwiches for monthly distribution to the Veterans Multi-Service Center, preparing Thanksgiving baskets for community distribution, and purchasing food items for two local food pantries as needed.
Memorial Presbyterian Church of Fox Chase – Food for Hope Food Pantry
Funding will support efforts to enhance the health and wellness of community residents by helping to feed families that are having difficulty.
Mizpah SDA Church
Funding will help purchase supplies needed for wound care services and care packages for people on the streets in Kensington, nutritious food items to be included as part of a weekly community breakfast program, materials for the drug rehab support program, and advertising of a community health event this spring in the Frankford community.
Morivivi Latino Cancer Support Group
Funding will help support education and prevention programs, access to screening resources, support services, community engagement, and outreach activities aimed at increasing awareness and improving public health and wellbeing.
Redeemer Valley Farm
Funding will help with purchasing supplies as well as costs associated with hosting educational nutrition classes for the residents of Redeemer Village, a subsidized community for over 200 active adults.
Savage Sisters Recovery, Inc.
Funding will assist with outreach services offered through this group’s mobile van. Such services include a wound care station, bathroom and shower on board, and connecting Philadelphia’s most vulnerable to recovery resources.
St. Mark’s Church, Frankford
Funding will support programs for people facing homelessness, substance use disorder, and other socioeconomic challenges, including activities and programming that promote mental wellbeing, and on-site and off-site retreats.
Socks for the Streets
Funding will support efforts in Northeast Philadelphia to purchase and distribute essential items such as sandwiches, snacks, hygiene products, wound care bags and seasonal supplies. Funds will also help connect individuals with necessary services, transportation assistance through Septa cards, and family support for those affected by homelessness or substance use disorder.
Tikvah AJMI
Funding will support a series of monthly small group programs led by content experts to engage and empower members in pursuit of activities of specific interest, programs for members and the broader community to hear from and engage with local experts in the mental health sector, and planning for a Spring 2025 Mental Wellness Resource Fair.
Upper Moreland Youth and Drug Council (AKA Aldersgate Youth Service Bureau)
Funding will help develop a program to provide services that can be personalized by age/grade and circumstances for suspended students or groups of students to work on anger management, conflict resolution, and impulse control.