Police Assisted Recovery Program wins 2019 Mayo Clinic Shared Value Award
This year’s Mayo Clinic Shared Value Award will go toward a police-led initiative designed to help people break the cycle of addiction.
The announcement was made this morning during Mayo’s annual report to the community. The award comes with $30,000 in funding.
The Police Assisted Recovery Program launched this summer as a collaborative effort between the Rochester Police Department, Zumbro Valley Health Center, Doc's Recovery House, Minnesota Adult and Teen Challenge, EmPower CTC, and Olmsted County Adult Behavioral Health.
As we reported in August, the program gives local law enforcement the capacity to provide temporary housing for individuals who want to pursue recovery, but lack the necessary support system.
The project was among three finalists competing for the Shared Value Award, which is voted on annually by community members and Mayo staff. (Mayo, by the way, said there were a record number of votes this year.)
The two runners-up for the award — the Eviction Prevention and Meadow Park Initiative projects — will each receive a $5,000 grant.
ENTREPRENEURIAL efforts get a boost
We also learned this morning that the Collider Foundation, a nonprofit supporting entrepreneurial activity and education in Rochester, has been awarded $250,000 from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.
The grant, according to a news release, “will support Collider Foundation’s efforts to develop and pilot educational programming for low income entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs located in federally recognized economically distressed communities over the next two years.”
The Collider Foundation is led by local entrepreneur Traci Downs, along with director of operations Jamie Sundsbak and program coordinator Amanda Leightner. As part the announcement, the organization said it plans to incorporate Leightner’s Rochester Rising, an online publication devoted to telling the stories of local entrepreneurs, into the foundation.
The Collider Foundation is an offshoot of Collider Coworking, an entrepreneurial hub located in the Conely-Maass-Downs building. The group runs a number of local events, including 1 Million Cups Rochester and Rochester Entrepreneurship Week.
The latter of those events is — by no coincidence — taking place this week, while the 1 Million Cups events are held on the first Wednesday of every month. [I should also take the opportunity to note that I will be sharing Med City Beat’s startup story during this Wednesday’s event. Details here.]
MAyo physician wins pitch challenge
We are a little late on this news. But since we have a theme going here of money going to worthy causes — let’s take an opportunity to highlight Phenomix Sciences, a Mayo spinoff that was last week awarded $500,000 at the Meda Million Dollar Challenge for Minority Entrepreneurs.
The company, led by Dr. Andres Acosta, an Ecuadorean immigrant and Mayo gastroenterologist, uses an innovative blood-based test to predict a patient’s ‘subtype’ of obesity, which then in turn informs the type of intervention needed for each patient to maximize weight loss.
Acosta told the Star Tribune that Phenomix Sciences will use the money to complete regulatory requirements and finish its lab in St. Paul. The company also has a facility in Rochester.
In competing for the grant, Acosta went up against more than 500 businesses across the country that had applied to participate.
Sean Baker is a Rochester journalist and the founder of Med City Beat.
