Howard Brown Health Center Announces $350,000 'Pride Challenge'

Contact: Alonzo Brown
Phone: 773.388.8661
Email: AlonzoB@howardbrown.org

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Howard Brown Health Center Announces $350,000 "Pride Challenge" 

Generous New Donor Provides an Amazing Gift to HBHC
Challenging Others to Join and Help Provide Care to Uninsured

Chicago, Ill. (May 17, 2012) – Howard Brown Health Center (HBHC) announced its 2012 Pride Challenge today as part of its Health Access Fund that enables the organization to provide much needed health care to uninsured patients. The Pride Challenge is being inaugurated with a generous new gift of $315,000 from the estate of a supporter of HBHC. The donor, according to a spokesperson for the estate, was proud of HBHC’s recent success, believed in the mission, and wanted to help Howard Brown Health Center continue moving forward. An additional matching challenge was pledged immediately in response to the Pride Challenge – raising the total challenge to $350,000, with a goal of meeting or exceeding the challenge by the end of LGBT Pride Month on June 30th.

"When I got the call about this amazingly generous gift, I was once again moved to tears of joy and gratitude for the extraordinary benevolence someone else has shown for the patients we serve. Our donors are, frankly, exceptional; their gifts continue to be exceptional; and we are committed to them to ensure the work we do is exceptional. This matching challenge gift and the donors who join us, make it possible for HBHC to continue to expand our services to the thousands of people who need us most, by providing over $1 million annually in charity care. We couldn’t do as much as we do for so many without generous gifts like this," says HBHC President and CEO Jamal M. Edwards, Esq.

The donor was proud of HBHC’s success and through this gift is encouraging other individuals and businesses to support the needs of its patients by meeting this Pride Challenge. These donations go directly to HBHC’s Health Access Fund, which supports its mission to provide charity care to those in need of health care that literally have nowhere else to turn. Participants can contribute to this dollar-for-dollar matching challenge opportunity by visiting www.howardbrown.org/pridechallenge.

Donations of any size will be matched by this challenge and go directly to assisting patients who have no insurance and no other resources to pay for their care. For example, gifts of:

• $125 will provide comprehensive lab tests for someone newly diagnosed with HIV or a mammogram for a woman in need of a breast cancer screening.
• $250 will provide access to counseling and therapy for a youth at-risk for suicide, or a person newly diagnosed with a chronic or terminal illness.
• $500 will provide primary care visits for a patient with no insurance for one year.
• $1,000 will ensure continued and uninterrupted access to medication for a patient who cannot access HIV medications because of delays or lapses in receiving benefits on the AIDS Drug Assistance Program.
• $2,500 will ensure continued access to care for 5 or more transgendered individuals without insurance.
• $5,000 will ensure that nearly 30 LGBT youth, who may be homeless or at-risk for homelessness, can access stigma-free primary care.
• $10,000 will ensure that nearly 100 women receive access to comprehensive primary care and cancer screening, or 1,000 mental health, domestic violence or substance abuse visits.
• $25,000 will provide over 2,000 mental health visits for uninsured patients, or will ensure that 750 HIV-positive patients have access to primary care.

Donations such as these allow HBHC to increase the care it provides to those who lack sufficient insurance.

Matching the $350,000 dollar-for-dollar by June 30 will put HBHC within a few dollars of reaching its goal of raising $1 million for the second year in a row.

Donations can be mailed to Howard Brown Health Center, Attn. Development, 4025 N. Sheridan Rd., Chicago, Ill. 60613 or made online at www.howardbrown.org/pridechallenge. 

For more information, or to learn more about how you can help reach the matching gift goal, please visit www.howardbrown.org/pridechallenge or call the HBHC Development team at 773.572.8368.

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About Howard Brown Health Center

Founded in 1974, Howard Brown Health Center (HBHC) is one of the nation's largest health care and research organizations, primarily serving the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community and its allies. It is the largest such organization in the Midwest and serves more than 36,000 adults and youth each year throughout the region. An innovative and patient-centered health home, HBHC provides primary medical care, behavioral health services, and specialty chronic and infectious disease services, and conducts nationally-renowned clinical and behavioral research.