OUR HISTORY
About Healthy Valley Foundation
The Hemet Valley Medical Center opened its doors to the community in 1943 and remains the second largest employer in the Valley. For over 60 years it served residents in the San Jacinto Valley. Today, Hemet Global Medical Center is the only hospital centered in the San Jacinto Valley putting great pressure with the growing population for access to healthcare and impacted with less than half the needed primary care providers needed, the hospital remains vital to the future of the community.
The Hemet Hospital Foundation (our predecessor) was established in 1980 by the hospital board to seek private gifts and grants to support the hospital’s current and long-term capital needs. For over 30 years the Hemet Hospital Foundation raised millions of dollars providing critical financial support that purchase state-of-the-art equipment, upgrades, and remodels of the facility and nursing programs as well as scholarships for the students of the valley.
The Healthy Valley Foundation was established in 2013 by the sale of Hemet Valley Medical Center (a non-profit hospital) to KPC (a for profit hospital). With the sale, the State of California requires that the proceeds of the nonprofit hospital be used for the benefit of the community. The leadership at that time had an opportunity to dissolve and distribute the funds to other nonprofits or create a nonprofit public charity. The vision was for long-term health and wellbeing support for the San Jacinto Valley, establishing the Hemet San Jacinto Community Foundation, or doing business as the Healthy Valley Foundation.
The San Jacinto Valley is a sprawling community nestled in the foothills of the San Jacinto Mountains. The Valley is a mixed landscape of rural and agriculture and is considered one of the fastest growing areas in Riverside County and the state of California since the 1980s. It is home of San Jacinto Wildlife Area, San Jacinto and Santa Rosa Mountain making is an outdoor recreation location of hiking, biking, and wildlife. With the mountain and pass range, resides two cities – Hemet and San Jacinto – with a combined population of over 150,000 residents over half of which identify as Latino. With the growing population, the Valley is holding tension of its rural and agricultural roots and the needs of urban living removed from major highway systems.
Prior to both Mexican and American settlement in the valley the people of Cahuilla and Luiseño ancestry lived on these lands. The Soboba Band of Luiseño Indians is now the home to the descendants of some of these people with over 8,000 acres and 1,600 tribal members.
We are steeped with rich diversity and history, creating opportunities for us to bridge understanding, develop collaboration, and forge together new pathways to move all our residents from suffering to struggling to thriving.
Since inception, the Foundation has dispensed several million in grants and scholarships. Our recipients have been Mount San Jacinto College, numerous non-profits, Hemet and San Jacinto USD, nursing students, and Valley-Wide Recreation, and more.
Patricia McSweeny McCauley (1913-2004) A pioneer in healthcare education in the San Jacinto Valley.
what we do
The Healthy Valley Foundation
We are dedicated to advancing equitable health, well-being, and resiliency of all people in the San Jacinto Valley. We do not do this work alone. From hearing from our partners, we engage in a cross-sector network of non-profits, government, education, and business institutions working together towards a shared North Star (vision).
Community Leadership and Service
In our capacity as a convener, or backbone organization, we mobilize, coordinate and facilitate the process of our collective impact efforts. We do so by guiding vision and strategy, supporting aligned activities, establishing shared measurement systems, building public will and mobilizing funding to support the initiative(s).
Vital Conditions Framework
Our work is centered together around the Vital Conditions for Health and Well-being Framework. This framework is useful for bridging the connection of social determinants of health across various industries by understanding the connection of well-being within the ecosystems people- we all - live in. The framework also advances a collaborative, cross-sector approach to improving community health and well-being and will serve as our guide to identify where and how to invest in the Valley to yield the systems change results over time.
Access to Care
We aim, through collaboration regionally and locally to improve access to care through policy initiatives, community outreach efforts, and healthcare system improvements aimed at reducing barriers to access and promoting health equity.
GRANTMAKING
Through data, research, and our community Listening Tour, we will establish our Areas of Focus aiming to support collaborative efforts tackling systems change efforts in our communities we serve.