Helmsley Charitable Trust Helps Yad Sarah Widen Healthcare Access to Israel’s Periphery
$1.5 million in grants goes towards expanding home hospital equipment and mobile dental clinics in northern and southern Israel
The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust has announced two grants totaling $1.5 million to Yad Sarah for two projects that will expand access to healthcare for residents of Israel’s periphery. The first grant for $750,000 will support the expansion of Yad Sarah’s Home Hospital program in Israel’s southern periphery. The second grant, also for $750,000, will support the expansion of Yad Sarah’s mobile dental clinics to homebound elderly and disabled people in Israel’s northern and southern peripheries who cannot access affordable dental care. Yad Sarah has pledged to raise a matching sum to assure unsurpassed service to the residents of the periphery.
Yad Sarah’s Home Hospital program provides equipment and services for patients at home. Started as a pilot program in 2014, the Home Hospital program has distributed thousands of electric beds, patient hoists, and other related equipment to patients seeking home-based recuperation and rehabilitation. With the Helmsley Charitable Trust’s support, this program will now be expanded in southern Israel.
Yad Sarah’s mobile dental clinics currently operate in Jerusalem, Beersheba, and Haifa suburbs and provide dental care to homebound elderly and disabled people. The Helmsley grant will support the expansion of the mobile units, which includes purchasing equipment, and will enhance Yad Sarah’s capacity to dispense low-cost dental care from its mobile dental clinics in northern and southern Israel.
The mobile clinics help improve the dental health of Israelis who are unable to travel to see a dentist. Since Helmsley’s Israel Program began active grantmaking in 2010, Helmsley has committed over $170 million to projects and organizations in Israel, including substantial grants to institutions, hospitals, and programs that improve access to healthcare in Israel’s periphery.
Yad Sarah, the largest volunteer organization in Israel, provides a spectrum of services designed to keep the ill and the elderly in their homes and out of institutions as long as possible. In the past 40 years, Yad Sarah has helped every second family in Israel.
Commenting on both grants, Sandor Frankel, a Trustee of The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust, said: “Yad Sarah is an organization that offers an unparalleled service in providing healthcare access to the sick and elderly. The work it undertakes in Israel’s periphery and its commitment to widening healthcare access to all embody the values that inform our own grantmaking. We are delighted to support these two important initiatives over the next three years.”
Moshe Cohen, Director General of Yad Sarah, said: “As a volunteer organization funded by donations, we very much appreciate the important and valuable contribution of the Helmsley Charitable Trust and wish to express our sincere thanks. Together, we can extend both services to the increasing number of patients who need them. Yad Sarah has placed great emphasis on the goal of extending its services in the periphery, a goal it shares with Helmsley, whose achievements are inspiring.”
Adele Goldberg, Executive Director of Friends of Yad Sarah in the United States, said: “We are thrilled that the Helmsley Charitable Trust has partnered with Yad Sarah to make this transformative investment, which will expand the reach of two uniquely effective programs to improve health and dental care for those who live on Israel’s periphery. We look forward to working with the Helmsley Charitable Trust to realize the great promise of this visionary grant.”