ARH foundation gives $5,000 grant for Hazard childcare meals

A $5,000 grant from Appalachian Regional Healthcare will help New Beginnings Childcare and Preschool Center in Hazard put nutritious meals in front of more than 100 children from birth to age 5, a direct response to food insecurity and rising grocery costs in Perry County.

The project, Healthy Meals for Growing Minds, is aimed at a center that primarily serves low- to moderate-income families around Hazard. At that scale, the grant works out to roughly $50 per child if spread evenly across 100 children, a reminder that even a modest award can matter when it is tied to food, child care and early learning.

The money came through the ARH Foundation for Healthier Communities, whose community grant program caps awards at $5,000 and is built around specific, measurable projects that address health and well-being needs in the ARH service region. In this case, the foundation framed the award as part of its broader community mission, not a one-time gesture, but an investment in the daily stability of a local institution that families use every day.

Leslie Hammer, executive director of the foundation, said access to nutritious food is central to lifelong health. Brian Springate, chief executive of Hazard ARH Regional Medical Center, said the support strengthens a resource families rely on every day. For Hazard parents, that matters because New Beginnings sits inside one of the county’s core population centers and serves children at an age when meals shape both development and household budgets.

ARH said its roots go back to 1955, when the Miners Memorial Hospital system was opened by the United Mine Workers of America, and that it has grown into a 14-hospital not-for-profit health system serving more than 500,000 residents annually. The system said it employs more than 6,700 people and has more than 1,300 providers, making it the single largest employer in southeastern Kentucky and the third-largest private employer in southern West Virginia.

The Hazard meal grant also fits a pattern of early-childhood health work already underway in the region. In October 2025, ARH partnered with LKLP Head Start to provide nutrition education and other health services to families through Head Start sites and the ARH Mobile Clinic. Together with the new grant, that approach shows ARH using small, targeted investments to shore up child nutrition and family support in Perry County, even as grocery costs and food insecurity continue to press on the same households once the grant dollars are spent.