MARQUETTE — The Superior Health Foundation recently announced the launch of its 2019 Proactive Grant Focus process with the release of a request for information to gather criteria about organizations with the capacity and vision to make an impact on improving medical transportation services throughout the Upper Peninsula.

“The Superior Health Foundation continues to lay the groundwork as an effective, empowering U.P.-wide philanthropic foundation with a health-centered focus,” Jim LaJoie, executive director of the SHF, said in a news release. “Our board of directors is very engaged in the process of making sure the foundation fosters collaboration and focuses financial grant assistance to organizations addressing health care needs through innovative solutions which impact the entire Upper Peninsula.

“Addressing medical transportation has long been in the minds of the SHF staff and directors. Assuring patients and their families have adequate, affordable transportation to get to their appointments is vitally important,” LaJoie added. “We’re optimistic that, with SHF funding and other funding partners, we will have the capacity to provide evidence-based transportation solutions across the region.”

In 2019, SHF will award about $340,000 to an organization, or a collaborative group of organizations, for innovative approaches that leverage the foundation’s funding to make substantial progress in addressing medical transportation. These monies will also be available in 2020.

After the responses to the SHF’s request for information are received, the foundation will convene a roundtable meeting on June 6 in Marquette to help target the foundation’s specific needs for the grant award. The anticipated release of that request for proposals is June 28, with an award decision in late August. SHF provides special consideration to those organizations which complete the request for information process, the release states.

To submit a response to the information request, visit www.superiorhealthfoundation.org or stop in to the SHF office, located at 121 N. Front St., Marquette, MI 49855.