(From left): Jackie Felicetti, Rhonda West-Haynes, Richard Roberts, III, and Michael Duncan pose with the $1,000 Penn Medicine CAREs grant award, donated to Young Men and Women in Charge.
Last summer, Chester County Hospital (CCH) began a partnership with a local nonprofit called the Young Men and Women in Charge (YMWIC) Foundation. The organization is dedicated to increasing the number of economically-disadvantaged and/or historically underrepresented fifth through 12th grade students who enroll in a four-year college or university and major in a science, technology, engineering, math or law (STEM/L) discipline.
At the start of the year, eight members of the hospital’s staff helped 40 YMWIC students, or scholars, as they’re called, develop their PowerPoint presentations for the Foundation’s annual science expo in March, which was held virtually. Ten hospital employees also participated in a virtual job shadowing program, where 19 scholars connected weekly via Zoom for three months to learn about the various roles in a health care organization. In addition, the hospital created short videos to highlight and draw awareness to some of the lesser known roles in the health care industry.
“One of our goals with this partnership is to help create a pipeline for young students in Chester County, especially those of color,” said Rhonda West-Haynes, MHA, BSN, director of Revenue Operations at CCH. “Many kids only think of doctors and nurses when they think of hospitals, but there are all kinds of career opportunities within a health system. We want to help expose the scholars to those roles. But, above all, we want to support their budding interest in the health sciences.”
The hospital was recently awarded $1,000 through the Penn Medicine CAREs Grant program, which provides funding to help support community initiatives throughout the health system’s geographic footprint. The grant will be used to purchase the required YMWIC uniforms for 10 scholars, said Jackie Felicetti, MA, the hospital’s chief HR officer. “If we can get more people interested in a variety of health care roles and improve diversity in our workforce, it’s a win for everyone,” she said.