HANCOCK — Grant proposal are being sought for projects that focus on community health in the Copper Country.

The Portage Health Foundation is currently accepting proposals for grants that address adolescent health and mental or behavioral health issues. These two areas were identified as health risk factors in a recent Community Health Risks Needs Assessment. The foundation is also trying to bring various community groups together for a common cause.

Executive Director Kevin Store said, “Certainly our mission is such that we are trying to promote not only increased philanthropy and charitable giving, but we’re trying to increase the collaborative partnerships within our community to make the service provision more efficient. So, one of the things that we wanted to try to do with our granting process is to encourage those types of partnerships.”

The Portage Health Foundation operates according to a group of core clusters including deploying and developing capital, advocating for other non-profits, engaging community resources, and building partnerships.

Store said, “Applications that come in that demonstrate those type of partnerships are certainly going to get a much stronger look from us because we see that there’s a real benefit in bringing those types of partnerships to the community as we look at reinvesting our capital to solve some of these systemic problems.”

Grant applications can be downloaded from the Portage Health Foundation website. Just follow this link.