COLORADO CITY OPENS FIRST HEALTH CLINIC IN 10 YEARS WITH FEDERAL GRANT
Funding from the American Rescue Plan Act enabled Creek Valley Health Clinic to meet urgent health care needs in an overlooked community
FUNDING SOURCE
American rescue plan act
partner organization
Local First Arizona
When JoAnne Zitting was growing up in a rural part of northern Arizona dominated by a fundamentalist religion, she believed medicine was for “rich kids.”
Medical services in Colorado City, a remote town on the Utah border known for its now-imprisoned polygamous leader Warren Jeffs, were absent by design. The president of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints promoted distrust of anyone outside the sect and denied health care to followers as punishment.
“We got our immunizations from the health department if we were lucky,” Zitting said. “If you ever got sick, you ate garlic and you went to bed.”
But the community, which lies not far from the Grand Canyon and Zion National Park, has been changing.
Four years ago, Zitting and business partner Hunter Adams established Creek Valley Health Clinic. Like Zitting, Adams has ties to the town. His wife’s family was formerly fundamentalist.
When the clinic opened its doors, residents flocked to receive care. It is the area’s first health center since the last sect-run clinic closed in 2011.
“There’s generational poverty here,” said Zitting. “The clinic has been like a big hug to the community.”
Clinic co-founder JoAnne Zitting
Clinic co-founder Hunter Adams
Pandemic threatens clinic closure
The federally funded clinic offers primary care, occupational therapy, speech therapy and psychiatry to about 3,500 patients a year.
However, its future was thrown into doubt when the COVID-19 pandemic struck.
Visits dropped and revenue decreased as people heeded advice to stay home.
Zitting and Adams couldn’t let down their community that had endured social turmoil, poverty and lack of healthcare. They searched for financial support to keep the doors open.
Local First Arizona’s Economic Resource Center provided the answer. Since 2021, the center has helped rural towns, tribes and nonprofits win more than $50 million in grants. The program provided Zitting and Adams free grant writing support as they juggled their managerial and operational duties at the clinic.
“I had experience in grant writing, but I didn’t really have the time,” Adams said. “Local First filling the gaps has been incredible. They really help secure state and federal funding in places the funding really needs to go.”
We’re by the community, for the community’
When Creek Valley Health Clinic’s application for a $385,000 federal Rural Emergency Healthcare grant — issued as part of the American Rescue Plan Act — was approved — they immediately put the funding to work for the community.
They bought supplies, like finger pulse oximeters for patients to use at home, vital sign monitors, thermometers, an EKG machine, and a suction machine for RSV treatment. They kept staff members paid during a tumultuous period and fostered an increasingly trusting relationship with community members who historically questioned modern medicine.
“We’re combating stigma. And it’s not unique to Colorado City. Go to any small town and they’re going to have things they resist,” Zitting said. “We like to say we are by the community, for the community. Resources were taken out of their hands, but because this health care is being offered from a culturally responsible place, they’re taking their power back.”
Children’s checkups at the Creek Valley Health Fair
Diabetes, blood pressure, cancer screenings and weight management all improve
The most profound evidence of that shift is in the dramatic swings Zitting and Adams have witnessed in the community’s overall health.
For a clinic that is playing catch-up on 20 years of undiagnosed and untreated conditions, Creek Valley Health Clinic is making an outsized impact.
From 2020 to 2023, the rate of uncontrolled diabetes in the community has plummeted from 48% to 17%.
The rate of controlled hypertension has more than doubled; screenings for cervical, colorectal, and breast cancer have tripled; and the rate of follow-up care for patients needing weight management support has dramatically improved.
“When you grow up in a community like this, you’re not aware of the resources you don’t have until you get exposure to what other places look like,” Zitting said.
With help from federal funding, the clinic is creating a valuable domino effect throughout the community, she said.
“It has been, in my mind, such a pivotal starting step to the true regrowth in the community. I’ve seen it ripple out in so many ways,” Zitting said.
Engaging kids with free fruits and vegetables
A pilot program Adams and Zitting initiated, utilizing $400,000 from a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services grant, integrates developmental assessments into primary care for children from birth to the age of 5. The goal is to assess developmental delays earlier, so interventions can begin sooner.
Another initiative is the clinic’s nutritional program, dubbed SNACC, or Strengthening Nutrition and Activities in our Connected Community. The program provides free nutrition programming, in partnership with the local food bank, to supply the community with healthy food options and integrate those foods into a chronic disease treatment plan.
“We have a saying that sometimes the biggest ideas happen in the smallest of places,” Adams said. “We’ve created this innovative project that has gotten the attention of the Arizona Department of Health and they’re trying to replicate it in other communities. It’s really powerful, because we’re just this small little clinic in rural Arizona.”
Even the community’s youngest residents are involved.
For each well visit at Creek Valley Health Clinic, kids earn $5 vouchers to purchase their own fruits or vegetables the next time they go to the store.
“Kids get so excited about fruits and vegetables. And their parents don’t have to feel a financial barrier,” Zitting said. “It’s those little things, where you’re seeing shifts in generational practices, that are so impactful.”
Request free grant assistance from Local First Arizona’s Economic Resource Center at localfirstaz.com/economic-resource-center.
The American Rescue Plan Act was a stimulus package passed by Congress in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was signed into law in 2021 by President Joe Biden to aid in the country’s economic recovery.
Mobile mammogram vans in Creek Valley
