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Sunflower Awards COVID-19 Response Grants to Support Operations for Local Health Departments

Emergency Public Health Grants: Core Operating Support = $115,000

Local Health Departments Funded = 72

Sunflower provided emergency COVID-19 funding to 72 local public health departments serving 77 Kansas counties. Small, rural departments were prioritized for funding. The grant was administered by the Kansas Association of Local Health Departments (KALHD). The goal was to provide local departments with quick access to dollars needed to meet immediate needs.

These were not large grants, $2,000 or less, but the funding proved vital to the 72 departments who found themselves in a difficult financial position. The majority of departments used the funds to support staffing and to purchase personal protective equipment (PPE).

KALHD noted that while the public health community is hoping to benefit from the larger, longer-term aid packages being assembled at the federal level, it has been the funding provided through the Sunflower Foundation and the speed at which those funds were approved and deployed that has eased the stress of many health department administrators while protecting their staff as they went about their critical work early on in the pandemic.

Total Projected Funding Uses

  • Salaries, wages, benefits (56%)
  • PPE (16%)
  • Other programs and services (13%)
  • Cleaning, supplies (10%)
  • COVID-19 testing costs (5%)
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