Since 1968 the Indianapolis community has entrusted HealthNet with providing quality health care to its residents, and now 40 years later, its vital role has helped shape the lives of many uninsured, underinsured and poverty stricken families.
With a mission to improve lives with compassionate health care and services regardless of ability to pay, HealthNet is truly “Changing Stories, Changing Lives,” this year’s theme as it embarks on its 17th Annual Fundraising Gala. The summation of this name accurately quantifies all HealthNet has done and continues to do.
Alpha Blackburn, chairwoman of the event, says it’s important the community not only support HealthNet, but to be knowledgeable of what it contributes.
“It’s such a worthy cause. There is quite a tremendous need for families to have health care,” Blackburn said. “The need is great and HealthNet, which operates on a sliding scale allows for families who need and require good health care access to that care.”
With the support of the community, as HealthNet has continued to do for four decades servicing 42,000 Hoosiers each year, Indiana’s largest Federally Qualified Health Center is highlighting all the ways it has contributed to the overall general health of the city.
Tony McGee, director of development for HealthNet, says the importance of the gala is essential.
“This is not just an opportunity for us to celebrate what we are doing in the community, but also raise dollars for those 42,000 that don’t have the funds or access to pay themselves,” McGee said. “If you take that number out of the community they would not have a place to go to get proper health care. So, if we go away where do these people go who need adequate care?”
Blackburn says the private sector is cutting back on providing insurance and the government only provides partial coverage for most families. Noting this is part of the reason the community needs to embrace and become familiar with HealthNet.
“I see HealthNet as providing a guiding light, a way to see ourselves becoming a more healthy community. People who contribute by coming to the gala contribute to the health of the community in a very general and a very specific sense,” Blackburn said.
The gala will deliver HealthNet’s mission and will allow attendees to not just have an annual meeting but also what Blackburn calls an annual opportunity to tell its stories.
“The people that are there are going to be able to see hands on those we have served. They are going to know when they leave that place the money that they have contributed has helped someone else improve the quality of their life,” said McGee.
More than an evening gala full of vibrant colors, shimmering backdrops, a commemorative takeaway gift, music and dancing, HealthNet hopes to make the event memorable because of its cause — a job well done transforming lives.
For more information about HealthNet and its clinics, visit www.indyhealthnet.org.
