Palm Health Foundation Opens Scholarship Application

Palm Health Foundation Opens Scholarship Application for Nursing and Mental/Behavioral Health Professions

Nov 15, 2022

Foundation and its donors dedicated to making career goals possible.

Palm Health Foundation, Palm Beach County’s community foundation for health, opened applications for nursing and mental/behavioral health scholarships on November 1, 2022. The scholarships are administered by the George Snow Scholarship Fund and encourage individuals with financial need to enter and advance in the nursing and mental/behavioral health professions. Applicants must be residents of Palm Beach, Broward or Martin County, Florida, and apply by the February 1, 2023, deadline. The application, eligibility criteria and instructions are available on the George Snow Scholarship Fund website at www.scholarship.org.

Palm Health Foundation’s scholarships come at a time when the Florida Hospital Association and the Safety Net Hospital Alliance of Florida is predicting a catastrophic nursing shortage in the state by 2035 and data from Kaiser Family Foundation shows the current supply of Florida’s working mental health professionals meets only 21% of the state’s need. The foundation’s scholarships address several needs for growing and diversifying the workforce pipeline, including increasing faculty and graduating health professionals with cultural competencies.

Palm Health Foundation provides needs-based scholarships to nurses in LPN, undergraduate, graduate and doctorate programs, and to behavioral health professions students seeking bachelor’s and master’s degrees in social work, psychology, clinical mental health counseling, school counseling and other focus areas.

Since 2001, the foundation has granted more than $3 million in nursing scholarships to over 1,000 nursing students for advanced education. Palm Health Foundation scholarships are made possible by the generosity of donors, many of whom have established donor advised funds, The Nursing Advancement Fund, and The Scholarship Fund for Mental Health Professions.

The foundation’s recent scholarship donation match fundraising drive for mental and behavioral health scholarships is demonstrating the importance donors place on increasing the number of professionals in the field. Since October 1, 2022, the foundation has matched dollar-for-dollar gifts, doubling contributions to several donor advised scholarship funds and generating over $100,000 in new scholarship funding. Anyone can contribute to the foundation’s scholarship fund at www.palmhealthfoundation.org/october-match, and Palm Health Foundation will double any donation from $100 to $5,000 received through November 30th toward its $120,000 goal.

Foundation donors establish scholarship funds to create a legacy of health and healing. “We know that there aren’t enough behavioral health and nursing professionals in the field,” said Christine Koehn, PhD, who established The Koehn Family Fund for behavioral health and nursing scholarships at Palm Health Foundation with her husband, Rich, a former law enforcement professional who had a passion for aiding the people he encountered in need of mental health support. “After hearing the scholars’ stories of the financial barriers they face and the heart they want to give, we knew we wanted to help.”

For more information about applying for a Palm Health Foundation scholarship, please contact Leslie Cornwell at lcornwell@scholarship.org, 561-347-6799, or Channon Ellwood at cellwood@scholarship.org, 561-347-6799 at the George Snow Scholarship Fund. To inquire about making a donation or creating a fund to support health professions scholarships, please contact Carrie Browne at carrieb@phfpbc.org, 561-837-2281.

About Palm Health Foundation
Palm Health Foundation is Palm Beach County’s community foundation for health. With the support of donors and a focus on results, the foundation builds strong community partnerships, respects diverse opinions, advocates for its most vulnerable neighbors and inspires innovative solutions to lead change for better health now and for generations to come. The foundation supports health equity for Palm Beach County residents of all backgrounds, heritage, education, incomes and states of well-being. Palm Health Foundation has invested more than $89 million in Palm Beach County health since 2001. For more information about Palm Health Foundation, visit palmhealthfoundation.org or call (561) 833-6333.

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