When AVP of Community Engagement Jordan Kendig talks about the impact of HCA Healthcare’s partnership with United Way, he shares the story of a Denver mother. “Her name is Dulce,” he says.

To help prepare her preschool-aged son, Levi, for kindergarten, Dulce enrolled in her local United Way’s early education and home visitation program. “Dulce wanted more for her son,” Jordan says. “More readiness for school. More stability. She wanted more confidence as a parent.”

Through the program’s weekly home visits, Dulce received curriculum, books and coaching. “The resources enabled her to be her child’s first teacher,” Jordan says. “Not someone being rescued, but someone being equipped.”

Today, Levi is thriving in school. And thanks to the Denver United Way’s partnership with HCA Healthcare, they had the funding they needed to hire an additional home visitor.

They hired Dulce. “Responsible for walking alongside 16 families in her community, Dulce helps prepare children like Levi for school,” Jordan says. And she empowers mothers like herself through weekly home visits, education and access to resources.

Just past its one-year mark, HCA Healthcare’s United for Healthy Starts grant began last March when HCA Healthcare awarded $1.84 million to a collaboration between four major United Way markets around the country — Denver, Miami, Dallas and Nashville. The grant’s aim: to stabilize, strengthen and empower families during the earliest years of their children’s lives.

“The data tells us this is working,” Jordan says. In the first year, across four markets, 1,600 caregivers increased their knowledge of child development. More than 1,500 parents received parenting help, and 1,171 demonstrated measurable improvement.

Earlier this year, partners from these four markets met in person for the first time at the United for ALICE Summit, a national gathering that addresses financial hardship among households with limited assets and constrained income.  ALICE stands for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed. The organization represents working families who earn above poverty level but cannot afford basic necessities, such as housing, childcare, food and transportation.

“One consistent need surfaced across every market,” says Jordan. “Families do not always know where to turn when they hit instability.”

For parents just starting out, instability can take many forms. “Often, when a family welcomes a new child it disrupts their finances,” Jordan explains. “It might mean a parent can’t work the hours they used to, or they have to take a different job so they can be a caregiver at home.”

Other families struggle with knowing which foods are best for their babies or how to help their children learn to sleep in a crib. “There’s no manual that teaches you how to start raising a family,” says Jordan.

And sometimes, you don’t know what you don’t know. That’s when weekly, monthly and annual in-home visitation from social workers can help fill the gaps.

As people like Dulce meet in person with new families, they build trust and camaraderie. “You could call a new parent on the phone and ask if they are co-sleeping with their child, but that’s different from being able to walk into a room and assess the crib scenario,” Jordan explains.  “It’s about building relationships so families don’t feel like they’re being judged, but they have a level of comfort being vulnerable with an individual who shares their lived experience and who can connect them with trusted resources.”

In addition to providing funding that helps build capacity in these four United Way markets, HCA Healthcare also uses its scale to foster awareness of a critical resource hotline.

Just as 911 is a universal emergency number, 211 is a free and confidential service that connects callers to resources that help with basic needs, like housing, food and basic needs like diapers. Operated on a community level — often by the local United Way — the service is available in all 50 states and covers 99 percent of the U.S. population.

When someone calls with a need, the operator asks a series of screening questions before steering the caller toward community resources. “They might ask: Do you have access to food? Are you employed? Are you pregnant?” Jordan says. “Depending on how you answer, you may be referred to one of United Way’s home visitation programs.

The problem, according to Jordan, is that people who need 211 don’t always know it exists until their original need has spiraled. “What we’ve learned from our United Way partners is that often we’re catching people too late.”

With its broad scope and reach, HCA Healthcare is in a unique position to leverage its communications channels to create and distribute graphics and marketing materials that raise awareness of the 211 hotline. That funnels back into meeting the needs of the grant — getting the right people the right help at the right time,” Jordan says.

The HCA Healthcare Foundation remains committed to lifting its entire community, not just the patients HCA Healthcare serves. “I believe healthcare draws that servant heart,” says Jordan. “There are ways we can serve the community beyond the four walls of our hospitals.”

There is no one-size-fits-all approach. “Each community is different and has localized needs,” he adds. “But there’s one thing I hold as my North Star and compass: Every community has families. If you can lift up mothers and babies, you can lift up the entire community. As cliché as it sounds, it takes a village.”

In these communities, United Way has always been one of HCA Healthcare’s most valuable partners, a relationship that dates back to 1981 and surpasses $17 million in grants. “We want to empower United Way not just to be an extension of our hospitals’ reach, but to be an extension of the greater health system and communities in general,” Jordan says.

United Way and HCA Healthcare share the belief that communities thrive when their most vulnerable individuals move from survival mode to self-sufficiency. “If we look at the people who are fighting for survival, and we can start moving them on the path to stability, then they are able to breathe.”

That stability comes through meeting basic needs, like housing and healthcare. “We don’t want to give people a band-aid for a one-time need. We want to walk alongside them on their journey,” says Jordan. “That takes time, and HCA Healthcare is in it for the long haul.”