EVANS, May 6, 2021 – Sunrise Community Health was recognized as the 2021 Outstanding Migrant Health Center Award from the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC). Sunrise is humbled to receive this recognition, and we thank NACHC for celebrating this vitally important service Community Health Centers provide across the U.S. – one that is foundational to the community health center movement. Sunrise was selected for the award from among the nearly 1,400 Community and Migrant Health Centers operating through almost 13,000 service delivery sites in every U.S. state, U.S. territory, and the District of Columbia - serving one million migrant and seasonal agricultural workers and nearly 30 million people nationwide.
In 1973, a small group of community members and doctors were concerned about the health of migrant farmworkers, and they opened a clinic in a small, east Greeley storefront. Since this modest start, Sunrise has served tens of thousands of migrant and seasonal farmworkers in northern Colorado - alongside numerous community partners who share our vision for migrant health care. “We are inspired by the people we serve and the millions of farmworkers across the U.S.,” says Sunrise CEO Mitzi Moran, “Those who toil countless hours in unrelenting conditions such as heat, wind, rain, hail, and even sometimes snow in our part of the world… Those who face fierce odds to provide for their families and children… Those who do the back-breaking agricultural work to provide for all of us.”
Two members of the Outreach Team - Daniel Hernandez and Velen Gomez - were present with Mitzi Moran to receive the award at the 2021 Virtual Conference for Agricultural Worker Health. “We are proud of our Sunrise Cesar Chavez Outreach Program,” notes Mitzi Moran, “They serve with grace and compassion, honoring and celebrating our patients - with dogged determinedness and little fanfare - and they never hesitate to say, ‘What’s needed? We can do that.’” For nearly fifty years, the Sunrise Outreach Team has travelled throughout northern Colorado to consistently deliver migrant health care directly to farms, labor camps, and other agricultural employers.
It is an honor and privilege to support the health of migrant and seasonal farmworkers - and it is an honor and privilege to be recognized for this service.
For more information, contact:
Chalice Springfield
Chief Development & Communications Officer
(970) 346-2509