Texas Heart Institute and its Center for Women’s Heart & Vascular Health is dedicated to outreach and education in the Houston community and since 2010, the Women’s Center has collaborated with established community service organizations like the Kappa Kappa Gamma Charitable Foundation of Houston to provide health screening and education to many thousands of women in the Greater Houston/Harris County area, including large populations of underserved and underinsured minority women.

The Kappa Kappa Gamma Charitable Foundation of Houston awarded a grant to Dr. Stephanie Coulter, Women’s Center Director, to support her Houston HeartReach program efforts in the Greater Houston Area.

The KKG Foundation’s funding support will allow THI to maintain current educational materials in both Spanish and English and helps THI to remain a reliable, leading resource on women’s heart health for community organizations throughout Houston. The materials will be distributed through multiple channels, including one-on-one screening encounters with women at the HHR screenings, health fairs, and through the support group networks.

Previous HHR screenings have shown that this consultation may be the first encounter with a medical specialist for some women and is thus potentially a valuable, life-changing encounter. As such, these screenings provide a very important opportunity and compelling event where THI can share appropriate, THI-developed educational resources when women are most receptive to messaging.

This is the second grant awarded to the Center for Women’s Heart & Vascular Health and THI is honored to continue the strong partnership with the Kappa Kappa Gamma Charitable Foundation of Houston.

In 2015 and 2016 the KKG grant provided support for the production of new education materials for the screening tools to make survey statistics more relevant and outreach tools to help THI deliver better health coaching to modify women’s lives toward better heart health.

The 2014 Kappa Kappa Gamma Holiday Pilgrimage, a gift to Houston that is held every other year since 1941, provides the resources for the Kappa Kappa Gamma Charitable Foundation of Houston philanthropic arm of the fraternity that has donated more than $3 million over the years, providing many charitable organizations in Houston with funds for programs, facilities, equipment and scholarships.

Dr. Coulter looks forward to building and strengthening her team’s education reach and capabilities through this important partnership.

Photo Credit: TMC Magazine