Sikeston gets grant to expand trail

SIKESTON, Mo. Sikeston will benefit from grants totaling $220,421 from the Missouri Foundation for Health.

Through the foundation's Healthy and Active Communities funding initiative, Sikeston received $210,421 to expand its exercise trail facilities to encourage walking, jogging and biking. Healthy and Active Communities targets community-based organizations reaching populations at increased risk of developing obesity, including women and children, racial and ethnic groups and low-income individuals and families.

According to Jiggs Moore, director of the Sikeston Parks Department, the funding will provide another mile of paved trail in the Sikeston Sports Complex. That will create about a mile and a half of paved trail which extends from the Veterans Park into the Sports Complex.

Moore said the city applied for the grant in April and learned of its approval earlier this fall.

The city council will decide today whether to sign off on the agreement with the foundation. With the city's approval, Moore said bids will be sought after the first of the year and hopefully awarded by April 2012 in order to begin construction.

Bootheel Counseling Services in Sikeston received $10,000 to help the organization integrate mental health and substance abuse programs into primary care services, through MFH's Mental Health and Substance Abuse program. MHSA currently supports nonprofits' efforts to assist patients experiencing "co-occurring" mental illness and substance abuse disorders.

"BCS program goal is to develop agencywide collaboration between our co-occuring disorders services, mental health services, substance use services and primary health care services within our organization and across all departments. The goal at BCS is to always treat the whole person. By each department working together we will be able to provide better treatment for our consumers," said Jennifer Hartlein, BCS' director of Fund Development and Public Relations.

The grants are part of a $5.7 million round of funding recently approved by the MFH Board of Directors. Funding assists organizations that work to improve the health of Missourians, especially the uninsured and underserved.

Established in 2000, MFH is the largest nongovernmental funder of community health activities in Missouri. MFH is in its ninth year of grantmaking, having issued more than

$434 million in grants and awards to date. It is dedicated to improving the health of unserved and underserved residents in 84 Missouri counties and the city of St. Louis.