Woody and Gayle Hunt have deep roots in El Paso, Texas. Woody’s grandfather, M.L. Hunt, began a coal enterprise there in 1920, and in 1947, his father and uncle created Hunt Constructing Corp. Woody Hunt took over the household enterprise and at present is senior chairman of the board of Hunt Firms, a diversified, family-owned holding firm that invests in working companies, actual property property and infrastructure property within the U.S. and overseas. He met his spouse, Gayle, after they had been each college students on the College of Texas, El Paso, and so they raised their 5 youngsters there.
El Paso can also be the place they began their basis, the Woody and Gayle Hunt Household Basis, and the area has been the first focus of the inspiration’s giving. Since its founding in 1987, the grantmaker has dedicated over 89% of its giving regionally “to create a extra globally aggressive area and enhance its financial prosperity,” in keeping with its web site. It has made grants and commitments of over $147.9 million in help of two,934 initiatives and 624 organizations.
The inspiration prioritizes a spread of causes, together with arts and cultural heritage, training, and financial growth. Healthcare can also be a main focus: The inspiration supported the institution of the Woody L. Hunt College of Dental Medication in addition to the Gayle Greve Hunt College of Nursing, each on the Texas Tech College Well being Sciences Heart El Paso.
Now, the inspiration is stepping up for public well being by offering $500,000 to ascertain a scholarship fund at UTHealth Houston’s College of Public Well being El Paso. The aim is to help college students pursuing a grasp’s diploma in public well being and to extend the variety of public well being practitioners within the area. It’s one instance of how a neighborhood funder is tackling the preventative healthcare hole in its house area, with an eye fixed towards profession pathways and fairness for lower-income residents.
Public well being touches every part
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the necessity for a powerful public well being system, in addition to the numerous methods our present system is falling brief. In line with a 2022 report by the Belief for America’s Well being, solely 5.4% of the $4.1 trillion the U.S. spent on well being in 2020 went to public well being and prevention. In line with the report, “Because the pandemic has illustrated, power underfunding of public well being at each the federal and state ranges has left the nation ill-prepared for public well being emergencies and impedes prevention of most of the main causes of sickness and demise in the US.”
As we outlined in our State of American Philanthropy transient on the topic, public well being is a spotlight for a number of main nationwide funders, together with the Susan Thompson Buffett Basis, the Invoice & Melinda Gates Basis and Bloomberg Philanthropies (every gave over $200 million between 2015 and 2019). The Susan Thompson Buffett Basis has been a quiet however prodigious supporter of reproductive care within the U.S. for a while now, and the Gates Basis’s globe-spanning well being giving wants no introduction. In the meantime, Mike Bloomberg has been philanthropy’s prime crusader towards the harms of tobacco, and has supported public well being training via the Bloomberg College of Public Well being at Johns Hopkins.
In the meantime, many group foundations and native and regional well being funders additionally make public well being a precedence. The Hunts’ help for public well being training of their house area is an effective instance. Exorbitant larger training prices discourage many college students from staying in faculty or pursuing a graduate diploma; presents just like the Hunts’ that help scholarships for aspiring public well being college students goal to make the sector extra equitable and numerous. As Kristina Mena, El Paso campus dean of the UTHealth Houston College of Public Well being, mentioned in a current interview, “The No. 1 barrier to college students who need to pursue a level in public well being is the price.”
For Woody Hunt, the problem is native — strengthening public well being is one part of bettering the wellbeing of the area. “Once you boil all of it down, it’s actually a few give attention to the standard of life,” he advised El Paso Inc. after he and Gayle had been named El Pasoans of the 12 months in 2022. “To have good academic entry, good healthcare, arts and tradition, and good jobs, it’s important to have a top quality of life. These are all interconnected.”
Mena is working with the Hunt Household Basis to finalize the small print of how the scholarship fund will function, and whether or not it can cowl full scholarships for a small variety of college students, or partial scholarships for a bigger quantity. The plan is to start offering scholarships for the autumn class of 2023.
Investing in prevention
El Paso is situated within the Paso del Norte area (additionally referred to as the Borderplex area), which incorporates two international locations, three states and three main cities (El Paso, Texas; Las Cruces, New Mexico; and Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico). Paso del Norte is likely one of the largest bi-national communities on this planet. Poverty on the U.S. aspect is larger than the nationwide common, and public well being infrastructure is under-resourced and understaffed — and so is the well being system on the whole, as Woody Hunt defined in a current interview. “Inside our area, we are able to’t discover a medical specialty [in which] we’re not underserved in comparison with the state or the nation,” he mentioned. “So on a per capita foundation — whether or not it’s a doctor, a dentist, a nurse —we’re under the state common, and we’re even farther under the nationwide common. So any credential throughout the healthcare area we want extra of, and that features public well being.”
Effectively earlier than the pandemic, Hunt had an curiosity in public well being. He was a founding member of the board of the administrators of the Paso Del Norte Well being Basis, a well being conversion basis that has been selling healthcare entry and preventative healthcare within the space for 25 years.
“I’ve had a long-held view that our well being system in the US pays to deal with people who find themselves sick, it doesn’t pay to forestall well being points within the first place,” he mentioned. “We’ve acquired this lack of funding, at the very least for my part, on the prevention aspect. That is inherent to the way in which our system is structured. So I see the scholarship fund as a means of investing on the prevention aspect.”
Hunt is matter-of-fact and modest about his philanthropy, which has constantly centered on the area he loves. “I’ve at all times felt I didn’t should go very far to discover a place to focus our charitable {dollars}, as a result of the necessity is right here,” he mentioned. “And the capability to make a distinction is bigger, simply by definition, as a result of we’ve got a lower-income inhabitants.”
Mena says the scholarships will make a giant distinction. “For our college students, getting collectively the funds to attend graduate college will be difficult, so this might be the deciding issue,” she mentioned. She identified that tuition prices are significantly excessive for college kids who’re enrolled in twin diploma applications (college students at UTHealth can pair a public well being diploma with a level in drugs, dentistry or enterprise).
“I believe increasingly folks have realized that public well being can supply a singular talent set; it enhances so many various levels,” Mena mentioned. “We’re seeing folks from the enterprise group, we’re seeing of us who may need to pair a public well being diploma with an engineering diploma — how can we design safer workplaces and colleges, for instance. Political science — I at all times say, there’s in all probability nothing extra political than public well being. I believe the pandemic taught us that public well being just isn’t an remoted sector. It touches every part.”
Credit score:Source link
