Creating a Thriving Community Together: Santiam Service Integration
Providing temporary warming shelters to at-risk community members during a dangerously cold winter storm. Helping a disabled single mom improve the accessibility of her home. Keeping the lights on for a widow struggling to pay her electricity bill.
It’s all in a day’s work for members of the Santiam Service Integration Team—an outreach program of Santiam Hospital & Clinics, which brings together representatives from more than 200 organizations and businesses, including the government, the faith community, non-profits, schools, and local volunteers, to serve as a safety net for those residing in their area of service (Turner to Idanha, and Sublimity to Scio).
It’s one of many ways the hospital fulfills their mission to promote not only the general health, but the welfare of the community at large. As a collaborative partnership, Santiam Service Integration is able to identify critical needs in the community, then pool resources to meet those needs in the most efficient ways possible.
Making an impact
In its seven years of service to the region, the Service Integration Team (SIT) has a lengthy list of accomplishments, including aiding wildfire survivors in their recovery efforts, and providing warming shelters to houseless community members.
But just as important is its work coordinating services to help locals struggling to meet their most basic needs.
When a nurse at Santiam Hospital discovered the young parents of a baby girl just born in their Labor & Delivery unit had no place to call home, nor the essential items needed to care for the infant, the Service Integration Team jumped into action.
PacificSource, the WVP MOMS and DADS mentor programs, Church at the Park, and the Santiam Hospital nurse and care manager all worked together to develop a plan. They were able to meet the immediate need for shelter with a 30-day hotel stay for the family, acquire necessities like a car seat and diapers, and the WVP Mentor would continue to work with the family on a long-term solution.
This is just one of many stories that SIT shared with us, who acknowledged that no ask is too large, or too small, because everything they do impacts our community, whether it be one household or a whole town.
Future plans & getting involved
Santiam Service Integration hopes to expand programming into Jefferson in September of 2025, forming a new Service Integration Team that will focus on bringing community support to the Jefferson area.
For community members wanting to get involved, SIT asks to follow them on Facebook, where they regularly share volunteer opportunities, donation drives, and more.
As a partner of the Service Integration Program since its founding, SCTC is proud to play a role in supporting our most vulnerable neighbors, including providing un- and under-served community members with the connectivity they need to work, learn, and thrive.