(JUNCTION CITY, KS) Konza Prairie Community Health Center is celebrating National Health Center Week from August 8 – August 14 with a food drive to stock the Konza Cupboard, a free blessing box located outside the clinic at 361 Grant Ave in Junction City. The food drive will also benefit patients of the Konza clinic in Manhattan. Konza staff are contributing to this effort with an internal competition to see which department can donate the most items.
Each year, Konza’s not-for-profit community health centers (CHCs) in Junction City and Manhattan provide affordable, high quality primary medical, dental, and behavioral health care services to more than 13,000 patients from ten counties and have continued to do so while facing a global pandemic. CHCs are not ordinary medical clinics; they are also problem-solvers who reach beyond the exam room to care for the whole person by providing access to necessities like food and housing resources. CHCs care for everyone, regardless of insurance status; we are not just healers, we are innovators who look beyond medical charts to address the factors that may cause poor health, such as poverty, homelessness, substance use, mental illness, lack of nutrition, and unemployment.
While Konza’s approach is community-based and local, we are part of a national network of CHCs serving almost 30 million people nation-wide, saving American taxpayers $24 billion a year in health care costs by preventing and managing chronic diseases. CHCs are a critical piece of the health care system, and we collaborate with our hospitals, local and state governments, social, health and business organizations to improve health outcomes for people who are medically vulnerable.
“The health care system can be difficult to navigate,” says Konza CEO Lee Wolf, “We’re just people taking care of people and we try to make it as easy as possible. In community health you have the opportunity to change your patients’ lives for the better. You have healthier, more active communities who have a great relationship with their providers. It truly is the idea of community health – people getting healthier and growing together – and it works.”
More information about Konza can be found at www.kpchc.org.