UnitedHealthcare Donates $125,000 to Latino Leadership to Expand Programs for Families Displaced by Hurricane Maria
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Latino Leadership helping more than 9,000 families relocate from
Puerto Rico to Florida -
Partnership with UnitedHealthcare to support families in need of
housing, employment, healthy food and other community resources
ORLANDO, Fla.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–UnitedHealthcare Community Plan of Florida donated $125,000 to support
Latino Leadership’s programs that help families affected by Hurricane
Maria relocate from Puerto Rico to Central Florida.
Just days after the hurricane, Latino Leadership and the Florida State
Hispanic Chamber of Commerce established the Puerto Rico Family Response
Center to provide emergency relief and referrals for housing,
employment, schools and health care.
“UnitedHealthcare is partnering with Latino Leadership to address a
significant challenge in our state – ensuring that families from Puerto
Rico have access to the resources they need to lead a healthy and
productive life,” said Michael Lawton, CEO of UnitedHealthcare Community
Plan of Florida. “We are grateful for the opportunity to support Latino
Leadership’s compassionate and hands-on approach to helping Puerto Rican
families get a new start.”
Many of the Puerto Rican families who arrived in Florida after the storm
relocated to Orange, Osceola and other Central Florida counties. Latino
Leadership recently expanded the Puerto Rico Family Response Center into
a permanent one-stop resource centrally located in Orlando to serve the
Hispanic community.
“Since the first few weeks after Hurricane Maria, as people arrived with
little more than their suitcases, we worked to fill the great need for
shelter, medicine, food and clothing,” said Marytza Sanz, president and
CEO of Latino Leadership, which has helped more than 9,000 families
transition to Florida. “As their needs have changed, with the support
and welcoming spirit of partners like UnitedHealthcare, we can help more
families fully rebuild their lives in Central Florida, their new home.”
Latino Leadership and UnitedHealthcare sponsored Vive el Verano Latino |
Live the Latin Summer family day to announce their partnership and
welcome families who are experiencing their first summer in Orlando.
More than 400 people attended the event that offered health checks,
children’s haircuts, new clothes and family fitness activities, and
community organizations that provided information about local resources
to help families get acclimated to their new home.
About Latino Leadership, Inc.
Latino
Leadership, Inc. (L2) is Central Florida’s most established
grassroots organization committed to fostering the integration of the
Hispanic community into mainstream America. The organization emerged as
a voter registration project in 1999, which evolved into a 501(c)3
nonprofit organization incorporated in 2001. Latino Leadership’s
programs are focused into three major areas: education advancement,
leadership development, and economic development. One of L2’s
most successful programs is Santiago
& Friends | Family Center for Autism, which is the first fully
bilingual, linguistically and culturally competent center in Central
Florida. In 2017, after Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico, L2,
in partnership with the Florida State Hispanic Chamber of Commerce,
established the Puerto Rico Family Response Center (PRFRC) in Orlando as
a humanitarian response to help alleviate the suffering of families
impacted by the natural disaster. For more information, visit Latino
Leadership at www.latino-leadership.org
or follow @LatinoLeader on Twitter.
About UnitedHealthcare
UnitedHealthcare
is dedicated to helping people live healthier lives and making the
health system work better for everyone by simplifying the health care
experience, meeting consumer health and wellness needs, and sustaining
trusted relationships with care providers. In the United States,
UnitedHealthcare offers the full spectrum of health benefit programs for
individuals, employers, and Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries, and
contracts directly with more than 1.2 million physicians and care
professionals, and 6,500 hospitals and other care facilities nationwide.
The company also provides health benefits and delivers care to people
through owned and operated health care facilities in South America.
UnitedHealthcare is one of the businesses of UnitedHealth Group (NYSE:
UNH), a diversified health care company. For more information, visit
UnitedHealthcare at www.uhc.com
or follow @UHC on Twitter.
Click
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Contacts
UnitedHealthcare
Jocelyn Parker, 952-931-4265
jocelyn.parker@uhc.com
or
Latino
Leadership
Yamira Vargas, 407-895-0801
yamira@latino-leadership.org
