Healthy Connections, Inc. was founded in 1998 as a home-visiting program for Polk County's pregnant and parenting teenagers. The first volunteers quickly found that the struggles facing those young mothers were more than volunteers could provide for.

The scope of the mission was greatly expanded. Using government grants, gifts and a smattering of fees for services, Healthy Connections now operates a medical and dental clinic in Mena and in Mt. Ida that kept 14,000 patient appointments in 2008.

We provide free dental sealants to all second and sixth grade students in Polk County each February -- a particularly important service since drinking water in the region is not flouridated.

The program for pregnant teens still makes about 120 home visits per month, but the teenage pregnancy rate that was among the state's highest in 1998, is now in the bottom half.

"Where it has really borne fruit for us is our [number of] low-birth-weight babies is about a third of what it was. So we're having fewer babies, but the ones we're having are much healthier," says Executive Director, Bob Young.

Healthy Connections also is working with Southern Good Faith Fund on a program that offers matched savings accounts to low-income families.

In less than eight years, Healthy Connections has grown from a single proram staffed by volunteers to a multifaceted community health organization with over 40 employees and an annual budget of nearly $4 million.

And still the organization continues to grow as it rises to meet the needs of the community it loves.