LAS Receives Grant from Baptist Healing Trust for Middle Tennessee Medical Legal Partnership
Baptist Healing Trust recently awarded a $55,000 grant to Legal Aid Society of Middle Tennessee and the Cumberlands, Tennessee’s largest non-profit law firm.
The grant will support the 2014 Middle Tennessee Medical Legal Partnership (MTMLP), which includes the United Neighborhood Health Services (UNHS) clinic and Vanderbilt University’s student-run Shade Tree Clinic as partner service providers. Shade Tree Clinic involves bothmedical school and law school students.
“The 2013 grant from Baptist Healing Trust was a critical part of our ability to help patients at the ShadeTree Clinic and United Neighborhood Health Services last year,” said Gary Housepian, executive director of Legal Aid Society. “We are grateful for the Trust’s continuedand increased support, which allows us to integrate legal advocacy into health care and
provide critical assistance to low-income Tennesseans.”
These funds will allow Legal Aid Society to continue providing free, direct legal services to low-income patients and their families receiving treatment at UNHS and Shade Tree Clinic, as well as training and education to health care professionals to help them identify their patients’ need for legal assistance as it relates to their illness.
“We are proud to help support 42 local non-profits working to create access to quality, compassionate health services for the community’s most vulnerable residents,” said President & CEO Dr. Cathy Self. The mission of the Baptist Healing Trust, a private grant making foundation, is the sacred work of fostering healing and wholeness for vulnerable populations through strategic investing, philanthropy, and advocacy.
The Baptist Healing Trust awarded funds totaling over $2 million in its most recent grant cycles,bringing the collective grant making of the Baptist Healing Trust to over $64 million since 2002.The Baptist Healing Trust was created when Baptist Hospital in Nashville sold to St. ThomasHealth Services, a ministry of Ascension Health in St. Louis. Legal Aid Society gives free civil legal aid to people who have nowhere else to turn. It serves 48 counties from offices in Clarksville, Columbia, Cookeville, Gallatin, Murfreesboro, Nashville, Oak Ridge, andTullahoma. Legal Aid Society is funded in part by United Way.