Better Together: CCI’s Partnership with the City of Greenbelt

Community health centers are only as strong as the local leaders and advocates they can rely on. Thankfully, we can always rely on our friends in Greenbelt.

Our relationship with Greenbelt spans well over a decade. The partnership was kindled in 2006 when we decided the time was right to expand our service area to include Prince George’s County. Local leadership supported us from the beginning and wholeheartedly believed in what we wanted to achieve. So when we first opened our doors in the community the following year, it felt like a homecoming, even though we were new folks in the neighborhood.

Today, we deliver quality and affordable care to thousands of residents at our Greenbelt and Greenway health centers annually. Meanwhile, our bond with Greenbelt has only strengthened, leading to recent and upcoming initiatives that enable the city and its residents to thrive.

Taking on cost barriers

Greenbelt leadership believes in health equity, which is why they asked us to deliver services free of charge to residents without insurance while the city was pleased to cover the cost. We were immensely proud to be the only Federally Qualified Health Center entrusted by leadership with the proposal. Not surprisingly, it also meant a lot to our neighbors: over 260 patients have benefited from the free care.

Learning collaboratives

In 2021, a group of movers and shakers in Greenbelt wondered: what if local businesses and nonprofits had an avenue to collaborate? The Greenbelt Business Alliance (GBA) launched a few months later to do just that. Established by a volunteer steering committee featuring our Chief Strategy Officer, Jessica Wilson, the organization brings partners together (17 and counting!) to support long-term growth and sustainability in the city. Moreover, it’s an opportunity to exchange knowledge and ideas, as was the case this past March when our Digital Marketing Specialist, Thi Nguyen, presented to the group on best social media practices.

Connections to care

Thanks to the COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE) our neighbors with Medicaid in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties have not had to worry about losing their health coverage due to eligibility. But with the PHE ending in May, hundreds of thousands of recipients are now at risk of becoming uninsured because they no longer qualify.

We needed to get the word out about the change, so we reached out to a member in the GBA to secure a venue, free of charge, for our Medicaid Health Fair. Thanks to their help, we were able to hold the event in April at Beltway Plaza Mall. We provided our neighbors with health screenings, free groceries and gift cards, a chance to speak with four Maryland health insurance companies, and one-on-one appointments with our ACA navigator.

Looking forward

We’re taking our partnership with Greenbelt to the next level. Late in 2022, we announced that we had outgrown our Franklin Park health center and purchased a new facility on Ora Glen Avenue to house our current services and expand into additional ones, including on-site pharmaceutical care (more on p. 10–11). We’re also making significant progress on our family medicine residency program, which will operate out of our new location and begin to accept residents in 2024.

Much of what our team has accomplished in Greenbelt comes down to the relationships we’ve built in the community. We’re incredibly grateful to everyone who helped us make a difference for our neighbors. As we like to say around here: it takes a community to change a community, and we’re thankful to work alongside a city that embodies that motto.