Louisville-based SOS is investing in more job skills training for residents of West Louisville by donating over $10,000 worth of needed supplies to assist the Healthcare Essentials Training Institute (HETI) open its doors at 3135 Commerce Center Place. The Institute, which aims to hold its first semester this summer, will become the FIRST and ONLY Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) education center in West Louisville, focused on students in the surrounding community.
When two nurses, Melissa Coleman and Lisa Walton, met each other through their church and became friends, they discovered they had a shared dream of opening a CNA training center in their community. The training center, which is giving new life to a formerly vacant space, is a sign of hope for a community in pain.
The donation of healthcare supplies from SOS is helping to make the opening of the facility possible. Donated items from SOS included stethoscopes, hospital bed linens, personal care items, and patient gowns – things typically encountered in the delivery of care as a CNA. SOS provided costly administrative items such as desks, chairs and a white board.
But the partnership between SOS and HETI doesn’t end with the donation of healthcare supplies. SOS is also working to connect HETI with other resources and community partners to help get the program up and running and ensure its long-term success. SOS will also provide additional training opportunities for HETI students at its facility, where students can get hands-on experience with a variety of medical supplies.
“SOS is taking a project-focused approach with this center, which will help bring job skills training in a growing field right to the community which has suffered from lack of opportunity,” says Denise Sears, President and CEO of SOS. “Rather than just provide the needed medical supplies, we are looking at how to use all of our resources to support partners like HETI and walk alongside them to help them reach their goals. This project is just another example of how SOS is elevating lives in West Louisville.”
While SOS is mostly known for re-distributing surplus medical supplies to medically impoverished communities in the developing world, the organization’s role in protecting lives here in Louisville has never been greater.
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