History & Rationale
The Colorado Rural Health Center (CRHC) created the Marva Jean Jackson (MJJ) Rural Community Health Scholarships Program in 2003 to encourage rural facilities and communities to develop or support local scholarship programs.  Many rural communities in Colorado experience a chronic shortage of healthcare providers.  Evidence shows that one of the factors that can influence a provider’s decision to practice in a rural area is his “roots”: being from a rural area.  Programs that support healthcare training and education for students from rural areas have proven to be effective tools in addressing rural workforce shortages.

Purpose of Grants
Small grants that help pay for the training and/or education of a local healthcare provider are available for rural facilities or community groups.  CRHC will match, two-to-one, the support provided, up to $1,000 a year.  For example: a long term care facility might pay for an LPN to acquire an RN license; a hospital would help pay for a Medical Assistant training to become a Lab Technician; or, a small community would support a local student in becoming a Physician Assistant.  Awards are made for one year, but applicants may reapply in subsequent years.  The scholarship recipient must be either currently enrolled in classes or start training within three months of the application date.

Eligibility & Application: Download Application
Only rural facilities and communities are eligible to apply.  By “rural,” for this program, we mean outside one of Colorado’s 17 metropolitan counties.  The Board of Directors will occasionally consider compelling applications from smaller, isolated communities within the larger metropolitan counties.  The application is easy to complete and accepted year-round. For additional information or with questions please contact:

Cherith Flowerday
303.996.9698
303.832.7493
cfl@coruralhealth.org

Who is Marva Jean Jackson?
Marva Jean Jackson began her career as a federal employee with the Department of Labor in 1961 and retired in July 2002 as the Regional Program Consultant for the National Health Service Corps in Region VIII, which includes Colorado.  Marva worked with the National Health Service Corps virtually since its inception in 1972, placing healthcare providers in communities where they were most needed.  She has been nationally recognized for her leadership and innovation in the field of recruitment, with many of her ideas becoming national policy.  Her interest in rural health is both personal and professional since Marva is originally from Rock Springs, Wyoming, but luckily for us, Colorado is now her home. Even though she's retired now, Marva continues to work as a Public Health Consultant with a variety of Public Health Service grant programs, primarily serving underserved populations.  For forty-one years of service to Colorado and the rest of the country, we thought that creating a program that helps rural communities with their provider shortages and naming it after her was a nice way to say thank you.