Our outreach programs
Catherine’s sends teams of supervised student nurses to organize health fairs, and to set up health oriented programs at shopping centers, churches and homes for the elderly.

Calvin College nursing students go door-to-door in a program to spread the word on the availability of health care, not just at Catherine’s, but at other facilities that might better serve an individual patient.  

Catherine’s sponsors an indoor walking program in the hallways of Kent Hills Elementary School in the winter months. Student nurses from Grand Rapids Community College offer blood pressure checkups when walkers take a break. Materials that stress the paths to health are handed out, and, on the social side, the program provides contests, prizes and a congenial atmosphere.  

In the fall of 2000, Catherine’s led a three-year program to get children in the entire Grand Rapids Public School System immunized against hepatitis B. The Kent County Health Department provided the vaccines. School nurses helped organize the effort. More nurses volunteered to help give the shots. The program concluded after reaching students in the age groups that were not commonly given hepatitis shots as part of their childhood immunizations. Catherine's was widely praised for its leadership and for reaching far beyond its geographical service area.