Helena nonprofits win two Blue Cross grants for health, healing programs
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Montana steered grant money to The Friendship Center and the Holter Museum of Art, backing survivor services and free healing arts in Helena.
Two Helena nonprofits are getting Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Montana money aimed at help residents can actually use right now: survivor services and free healing arts. The insurer named The Friendship Center and the Holter Museum of Art among 13 statewide Blue Impact grantees on June 15, saying the awards will total more than $470,000.
At The Friendship Center, the grant will support Client Services, the program that provides immediate, life-saving help to victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking in Lewis and Clark, Jefferson and Broadwater counties. For Helena-area survivors, that means a local response tied to safe shelter, crisis intervention and longer-term support when danger is already present and time matters most.
The Holter Museum of Art will use its award for Healing Arts, a program built around free, hands-on workshops for vulnerable people, including at-risk youth and hospital patients. The museum says the work runs through partnerships with Benefis, Fort Harrison VA Medical Center, St. Peter’s and the museum itself, and is meant to create a positive healing environment for people dealing with chronic illness, mental health struggles, injuries, disease and trauma.
The two Helena awards land in a grant program BCBSMT says is designed to improve access to and affordability of health care while targeting the social and economic factors that shape health. Applications for the 2026-27 cycle ran from March 4 through May 1, and last year BCBSMT put more than $470,000 into 14 statewide nonprofits, showing the program has held at about the same funding level for two straight years.
For Lewis and Clark County, the measurable payoff will be plain if the money works: more survivors connected to crisis support, and more people in Helena, including patients and caregivers, getting free art-based sessions tied to local providers. That mix of emergency aid and preventive wellness shows private grant dollars stepping into needs that public systems often leave underfunded, especially for survivors and people looking for nonclinical paths to healing.
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