June 2022
This year, Champaign County Health Care Consumers (CCHCC) is celebrating 45 years of grassroots organizing for health care access and justice! Thanks to your continued support and involvement, CCHCC has had a definitive and lasting impact on our local health care system and human services since 1977.
You might be surprised to know that many of the local programs and services that improve our community’s health, and that we now take for granted, came about as a result of CCHCC’s community organizing work. This includes services such as school breakfast programs in county schools, hospital financial assistance programs for low-income people, nurse-midwives programs, prenatal care for low-income women, public health for county residents, free dental care for low-income county children, and more! These, and many more programs, are lasting legacies which CCHCC, with your involvement and support, has given our community.
In addition, over the past 25 years, CCHCC has worked on significant environmental issues including protecting the Mahomet Aquifer, as well as forcing a clean-up of the toxic site in Champaign’s 5th & Hill neighborhood (our 5th & Hill Neighborhood Rights Campaign, which still continues its work). Additionally, CCHCC has helped bring the benefits of the Affordable Care Act to our community, helping to sign up thousands of community members for affordable health insurance. We have also started and continue to participate in ground-breaking initiatives to reduce incarceration rates and provide services in the Champaign County Jail, as well as working with individuals going through reentry in our community, following incarceration in prisons. And, during the pandemic, we have been working to help keep our community informed and to expand access to resources for hard-hit individuals and families, including providing direct financial assistance as a result of grants we were able to get.
From its inception, CCHCC has been committed to improving the health care system by making it more responsive to consumer needs. Often, this has required uncovering abuses within the systems and challenging unfair policies. Even though these protests have received the most media attention and fanfare, CCHCC is proudest of the program initiatives and positive developments with our local health care system that are a direct result of our work – work that involves bringing consumers together with health care providers to build enduring programs and services that improve people’s lives and health.
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