Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 28, 1990 TAG: 9003280435
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B3 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: MIKE HUDSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Backers of the Comprehensive Health Investment Project, or CHIP, have asked for a multimillion-dollar grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
They hope to use the money to create more than two dozen similar programs in the state.
CHIP, which opened in Roanoke in 1988, provides medical care to children in the Roanoke Valley who otherwise would not have a regular doctor. It was developed by private physicians, local businesses and Total Action Against Poverty.
Organizers say it is aimed at the "working poor" - families who have low incomes yet do not qualify for government programs that serve the poorest of the poor.
Cabell Brand, TAP's president, said the community action agency has submitted a "concept paper" to the Michigan-based foundation and is in the process of writing a more detailed proposal.
Brand declined to say exactly how much money CHIP backers are requesting from the foundation.
Last spring the foundation announced it was giving $1.5 million to help CHIP expand its services in the Roanoke Valley over four years.
Brand said the hope for spreading CHIP to the rest of Virginia is a result of some happy turns of events.
Brand, who is TAP's president, also happens to be chairman of the state Board of Health.
In November, the Kellogg Foundation sponsored a three-day conference in Roanoke on community health care, bringing in medical officials from as far away as Alaska and New Mexico.
During the conference, the state health commissioner, Dr. C.M.G. Buttery, praised CHIP as an example of the way communities should be responding to their health needs.
Brand said the idea for expanding CHIP would be to gradually start similar projects at other community action agencies and eventually move into areas of the state not served by community action agencies.
by CNB