All Stories

One of the many concerning effects of the pandemic has been the public's hesitation in seeking care for stroke symptoms and treatment. When a stroke happens, "time lost is brain lost," notes the American Stroke Association. Amanda Werner, stroke program coordinator for UCHealth Northern Region, explains how a WISH award empowered staff to pursue a massive community education initiative.

UCHealth is preparing to embark on a significant renovation project at Poudre Valley Hospital to enhance the patient experience and care ahead of the hospital’s 100th anniversary in 2025. The transformation includes a new main entrance and lobby, a new heart and vascular care clinic, and a refresh of the birth center, women’s care unit and pediatric areas.

Jill Chambers, an occupational therapist for Children’s Therapy Services at UCHealth Poudre Valley Hospital, is passionate about helping kids who have special needs. When she learned of a large and growing body of evidence that supports the use of smartwatches to encourage healthy habits—including self-regulation, nutrition, physical activity and sleep—Chambers knew she had to find a way to add smartwatches to the clinic's toolbox.

The hard-won triumphs of the past year would be impossible without your generosity. Our stories herein help demonstrate the power of the gifts you give. Across time, when we work together, we bring great things to fruition for our families, our friends, ourselves and our future.

Each year, donor generosity enables the foundation to award scholarships to UCHealth northern Colorado employees interested in furthering career-related skills. For our 2021–22 scholarship cycle, $87,000 was awarded to 50 recipients. Since 2014, the foundation has awarded nearly $480,000 in scholarships to 322 UCHealth employees. Employee scholarships transform lives. They have the dual benefit of serving both the recipient and our community. The stories our scholars share in their thank-you messages show how generosity improves the lives of our health care workers while they work to care for—and improve the lives of—our patients.

The desire to help others is strong in northern Colorado. Even as we all experienced one of the more trying years in memory, helping cancer patients in need was foremost in many people’s hearts.

Addressing food insecurity in our community requires help from countless hands and hearts. In 2020, the FMC food pantry served, on average, 391 unique households each month. By the end of the year, the pounds of food distributed per week had increased to 4,000, up from 3,000 in earlier months.

WISH, a program of UCHealth Northern Colorado Foundation, is a giving circle whose members pool funds to support the health needs of our community through UCHealth programs, partnerships and services. Awards for its 2021 cycle were made to an array of programs, ranging from healthy hearts education for kids to equipment for rehabilitation therapies to car seat education and distribution, and more.

With Great Western Petroleum's support of our suicide prevention fund, UCHealth will be able to analyze and address some of the risks and prevention tactics through programs, outreach and medical studies.

We are proud of the compassion UCHealth employees show not only for our patients but for each other. UCHealth’s Giving Bikes Program is an employee-to-employee giving program intended to support families in need during the holiday season. The program provides bikes to children of UCHealth northern Colorado employees and this year was able to provide 83 bikes for 38 families.