The Donald W. Reynolds Foundation has given a $7.9 million grant to the Schmieding Home Caregiver Training Program to support operations for five years at the program's sites around Arkansas.
The program provides education and skills training to family members and paid caregivers working with older adults in their homes.
"The Donald W. Reynolds Foundation's support has been critically important to the success of the UAMS Schmieding Home Caregiver Program," Dr. Jeanne Wei, executive director of the Institute on Aging, said in a Tuesday news release from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.
"We are grateful to the foundation for this grant and for their continuing visionary support of all our programs, and thank them for their continued support of the training program."
The training program was inspired by Lawrence H. Schmieding, who 20 years ago struggled to find competent, compassionate home care for an older brother with dementia. In 1998, the Schmieding Foundation donated $15 million to UAMS to establish and support the Schmieding Center for Senior Health and Education in Springdale, which developed the curriculum and training program.
After its initial success in Springdale, a $2.9 million grant from the Reynolds Foundation in 2009 to the Arkansas Aging Initiative -- a program of the UAMS Institute on Aging -- helped replicate the Schmieding Home Caregiver Training program in Jonesboro, Pine Bluff, West Memphis and Texarkana in its first phase.
A phase II grant of $7.7 million in 2012 from the Reynolds Foundation sustained the initial programs and added four more sites in Fort Smith, Little Rock, Hot Springs and El Dorado.
The grant announced this week brings the Reynolds Foundation's total giving to the Schmieding program to more than $18.5 million and to $97.5 million overall to UAMS, making the foundation one of the largest donors in UAMS history.
The Reynolds Foundation is a philanthropic organization founded in 1954 by Donald W. Reynolds, the founder and principal owner of Donrey Media Group. The operations of the foundations are set to cease in 2017, when it completes programs and initiatives already in the works.
State Desk on 08/27/2015