Published: December 18, 2007 08:56 am      

Foundation gives grants

From Staff Reports



Gretchen London, Susan Stites and Leila Jenkins, three members of the board of directors of Corsicana Health Support Foundation Inc. presented checks to grant recipients Monday. The foundation is a tax-exempt non-profit corporation whose purpose is to promote health-related education, health care and treatment for residents of Corsicana. It accomplishes its purposes by assisting in providing funding for nursing programs at Navarro College and through public charities offering health care treatment and education.

Corsicana Health Support Foundation Inc. is an outgrowth of the Twilight Home nursing facility. Twilight Home was founded in the 1950s by concerned city leaders who saw the need for affordable nursing care. They formed a public non-profit organization that ultimately undertook the challenge of building and staffing a facility. It became well-known for its quality of service and was an asset to the community.

It became apparent to the Twilight Home board of directors in recent years that a number of factors were making it difficult for a nursing facility of this size and age to operate independently. Keeping up with regulations and reporting, compliance with governmental mandates, increasing costs of liability insurance, an aging building, the required maintenance of equipment, and the increasing competition from newer local facilities were all factors that had to be considered regarding the future of Twilight Home.

Professional consultants were brought in to assist in evaluating the future and developing a plan. That plan involved hiring a management company that worked with multiple locations and had trained staff with expertise in different areas that could be spread over their entire organization. In short, they could spread their overhead among the different facilities they managed. They also had access to capital and knowledge of the trends in the industry. They have used their expertise to make needed improvements.

A part of the transition to the management operating company concept involved transfer of some of the assets to Corsicana Health Support Foundation Inc. The new foundation will continue to operate for the benefit of local citizens needing health services. Thus, the vision of these city leaders of more than 50 years ago will still be implemented, but in part through updated methods and agencies.

Other Corsicana Health Support Foundation Inc. board members are David W. Wilson, Jr., Geral Nichols, Gerald York and Gary Brown.