By: Taylor Bowden / Assistant News Director

Four organizations in St. Cloud will be receiving the Greater St. Cloud Development Corporation’s 2020 Innovation award for their outstanding work in the community.

Two are focused on youth outreach and the other two are focused on delivering affordable health care.

The first recipient is the Boys and Girls Clubs of Central Minnesota. They launched CareerSTART in 2019 to provide exploration, development and application of career paths for school children of all ages. The program teaches them essential skills like teamwork, creativity, communication, problem-solving, conflict resolution, critical thinking and self-confidence. 

Next is Pathways 4 Youth. This program was started back in 2018 and aims to helps at-risk youth between the ages of 18 and 24 as well as those experiencing homelessness. Its youth resource center has provided up to 2,500 people with a food shelf, clothing, hot meals, showers, help with job searches and more.

The next two companies have helped many people in our area with access to direct health care without insurance.  These two offer the option to pay for medical services through monthly memberships rather than using health insurance.

Sartell Family Medicine and Simplicity Health both offer not only medical services and flexible payment plans but also offer appointments for their in-house mental health counseling, physical therapy and urgent care.

Simplicity Health also takes traditional insurance as well.

All of the recipients will receive $1,000 during the November 5th Award Ceremony via Zoom.