From The Catholic Spirit:

"Founded in 1993 out of five Minneapolis Catholic schools — Holy Name, Holy Rosary, Incarnation, St. Albert the Great and St. Stephen — Risen Christ is best known for its immersion program. With the school’s “50/50 model,” students receive 50% of their instruction in English each day and 50% in Spanish. Every student receives daily instruction in English and Spanish literacy. Grade-level teaching teams include one teacher fluent in English and one fluent in Spanish.

The effort began with the fall 2014 kindergarten class, and one grade has been added each year. Today, only eighth-graders did not start under the immersion program.

That model attracted Sonia Rosas, 28, of Minneapolis, and her husband, Jose, to Risen Christ. They have a 10-year-old daughter in third grade, and a 6-year-old daughter in kindergarten. In choosing the school, Sonia Rosas said it was important that students learn in Spanish and English, that it is a Catholic school, and she heard that people at the school “are very supportive with families and have a deep understanding (of) the culture and the language.”"

Read more. 

C2N Diagnostics’ Alzheimer's blood test was introduced into the clinic in October of 2020, a breakthrough healthcare innovation for patients, advocates, and physicians who have long awaited an easy to administer test that can help them better understand Alzheimer’s disease. C2N developed this groundbreaking test based upon longtime GHR partner Dr. Randall Bateman’s initial discovery of how to measure amyloid proteins in blood, validating its results in a clinical trial of 686 patients. 

From C2N Diagnostics: 

"C2N Diagnostics today announced its latest innovative offering for enhancing care in brain health: a high-resolution mass spectrometry-based plasma tau multi-analyte assay (p-tau MAA) for Research Use Only (RUO). 

This assay uses a small sample of blood to precisely and simultaneously measure different phosphorylated and nonphosphorylated forms of the tau protein, including forms with phosphorylation at the tau217 and tau181 sites. The assay draws upon prior discoveries by medical researchers that complex interactions among abnormal tau and beta-amyloid proteins and several other factors play a vital role in Alzheimer’s-related brain changes."

​Read more. 

From the NIH National Institute on Aging:

"As we mark the 10-year anniversary of the National Plan to Address Alzheimer’s Disease, which arose from the National Alzheimer's Project Act (NAPA), it’s striking to pause for a moment and consider how far we have come. Thanks to increased congressional funding, NIH spending on Alzheimer’s and related dementias research advanced nearly 4.5-fold between fiscal years 2015 and 2020, reaching $2.87 billion. This momentum has enabled NIA-funded science to take significant strides forward.

NIA small business innovation research funding helped validate and commercialize the PrecivityAD™ test, a more affordable and less invasive alternative to traditional Alzheimer’s tests like spinal taps or brain scans. This blood biomarker-based test is now widely available to doctors and researchers across the United States."

​Read more.

From the National Institute on Aging at NIH:
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Scientists have demonstrated that a new blood test can accurately predict the presence of beta-amyloid plaques in the brain, according to a new study funded in part by NIA. Published in Neurology, the study analyzed the ability of a blood test to predict the presence of Alzheimer’s disease-associated protein beta-amyloid in the brain. The new blood test, which performs comparably to existing brain scan- or spinal tap-based tests, could lower costs and expand the availability of diagnostic studies for Alzheimer’s disease.

Read more.

.From USA Today:

• New blood tests could offer easier way to detect signs of the disease in older adults with memory issues
• The tests may be helpful in identifying subjects for clinical trials or to screen for treatment.
• Alzheimer’s disease afflicts an estimated 6.5 million Americans.

As pharmaceutical companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a potential treatment for Alzheimer’s disease, other researchers are focusing on a more elemental question.

How can you tell whether a family member or loved one has Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia?

Read more.

In 2022, 40 sisters in Zambia, 17 in Uganda and 27 in Kenya will graduate, joining a growing cadre of sisters with degrees in social work or allied fields. They have studied diligently, worked hard, and pursued their training during a pandemic. They are already using their new knowledge and skills in caring for children and their families.   

These sister scholars are the backbone of Catholic Care for Children, a sister-led, charism-driven movement to ensure children grow up in safe, nurturing families.  With growing appreciation for the importance of family for a child’s wellbeing and the concomitant risks of institutional care, they are leading efforts to transition from over-reliance on institutions toward family- and community-based models of care for children.  In leading the transition, they are using their newly accrued skills to help strengthen families and ensure children can grow up in families or family-like environments.   

GHR produced this summary encapsulating the scale and impact of Catholic sisters in care, along with accounts of what their work has meant to them.

Read the summary here.

In May and June of 2021, The Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) conducted a survey of GHR Foundation’s grantees partners, producing the Grantee Perception Report, an assessment tool for GHR to collect and act on feedback from grantee partners. GHR once again joined a dataset of more than 300 other foundations and more than 40,000 grantee responses to understand grantee experiences, hear where we serve their needs most effectively, and identify opportunities to continue growing and nurturing these trusted partnerships.

GHR was pleased to hear that we continue to receive exceptionally strong ratings from our grantee partners – remaining within the top 20% of funders in the data set. Grantees rated us highly in our impact on the field and understanding of their organizations, and the individuals and communities we hope to serve. Grantees described GHR as a “quiet but indispensable leader” whose “cutting edge thinking, innovation, [and] inclusion” has “helped shape policy and practices…and [make] lasting and influential change.”

Non-monetary support to grantees, a priority across the foundation’s programs, was referred to frequently in grantees responses. Half of respondents received non-monetary support from GHR and two-thirds described that support as a major benefit to their organizations. As one grantee noted:
“[GHR has] helped us to think through project design and execution, communications, connected us with different programs doing similar work, [and] find additional ways our work can be helpful. This approach allows us to take risks in innovating our practice, pushing past…to experimenting with new approaches, which has been vital to the success we have had.”
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The Grantee Perception report also asks grantees detailed questions about the quality of their interactions with GHR. This year’s survey positioned us in the top 10% of the dataset for responsiveness and transparency, and at the top of our cohort for approachability and openness.
In the first quarter of 2022, our program teams remain committed to resourcing the approaches where grantees rate us highly, while being responsive to feedback on opportunities for enhanced communication to partners and broader audiences, about program strategy and GHR’s commitments to pandemic response and racial equity.
 
GHR is celebrating this encouraging feedback and continuing to nourish strong relationships with our partners here in the Twin Cities and across the globe. 

GHR is leading with love as we support our partners and the communities they serve in Ukraine. The Foundation has made emergency grants to Catholic Relief Services, World Without Orphans and Religions for Peace; three long-term, trusted partners providing humanitarian aid. Tapping faith actors and communities as essential partners in reaching and caring for the vulnerable, these organizations are uniquely positioned to respond to the growing crisis. 

GHR works to be of service to people and their limitless potential for good. We are reminded in this moment of our global interdependence, and the need for unity as we work in service of peace.

Seed-funded by GHR last year as part of a shared racial equity exploration, the newly launched Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation Campus Center at the University of St. Thomas will serve as a central hub to foster and strengthen racial justice and inclusion programs.

It will provide several programming initiatives, including academic partnerships and training with the St. Thomas faculty, racial healing for Black, Indigenous, and people of color communities, interfaith programs and culture in relation to BIPOC communities, and social justice and campus transformation. 

​Learn more.