INDIANAPOLIS — Marion County Public Health Director Dr. Viriginia Caine announced she is seeking community input to develop a plan to provide $10 million in grants to fund small community-based organizations that address social, violence and health-related issues. The Health First Indiana funding is being targeted for programs in 2025 addressing significant health-related challenges through organizations that may lack the infrastructure or skills to compete for traditional large grants. ”There’s some grassroots organizations that’s doing some incredible work and so how can I level the playing field from some bigger organization that’s well resourced, has some grant writers, but they may not have that same connection in their community to the folks that we really need to reach,” said Dr. Caine. ”There are about eight to ten topics that people can apply for.” While Dr. Caine has prioritized addressing youth gun violence as a public health care issue this year, she said other challenges should be addressed. ”Sickle cell is so critical in our communities, especially for black patients but for the whole community it may never rise as a priority for the whole community or our children who have autism,” she said. ”We have an interest in especially trauma injury, there’s a mental health focus related to that, but definitely suicide prevention so that anxiety depression and stress, how does someone in their neighborhood growing up who may be exposed to a post-traumatic stress disorder, how can we help them and provide resources.” Aaron Green founded “Struggle Made Us”, a program to address the trauma and mental health issues affecting young people who have been touched by violence. “It's me and two or three other people,” he said of the program that’s accessed by more than 300 people a year. ”We are able to talk to kids about mental health and trauma, teaching them before they reach trauma or even after, teaching them that they do have options.” Green said his program would benefit from a small financial boost through the MCPHD funding to augment his personal spending. ”A lot of it is out of pocket. We do get grants, mini-grants, but nothing big enough for us to kind of grow. That’s what we’re looking to do. ”I’m glad that somebody is trying to level the playing field a little bit because there are people who do this every day who don’t have the funding to kind of sustain,” he said. ”Ten or twenty thousand dollars would absolutely support kids in schools. One of the great things we’ve been able to do is get some funding and go to the schools and say, ‘Hey, just give me some kids.’ Then we don’t have to have that conversation about funding that a school may not have.” For more information on the MCPHD Health First Indiana program, click here. Dr. Caine said she intends to hold a pair of public input sessions between now and mid-October to solicit interest in developing a funding priority list.