October 1, 2009 | Read Time: 1 minute
Award winner: Rebecca Onie, 32, is one of 24 people to win a fellowship from the the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. (For a full list of winners, go to http://philanthropy.com/news/extras.)
Why she won: Ms. Onie co-founded Project Health, which recruits and trains college students to deal with the social problems that often lead to poor health. For example, it operates Family Help Desks at 10 hospitals in six cities. Doctors can write “prescriptions” for food, housing assistance, or other aid for patients. At the desks, Project Health volunteers connect the patients with social services.
Where she got the idea: While a sophomore at Harvard University in the late 1990s, Ms. Onie volunteered for a legal-services group. “Families would come in and they were about to be evicted because they hadn’t paid their rent,” she says. “They hadn’t paid their rent because they were paying for their medication.”
What she’ll do with the money: Ms. Onie says she will donate a portion of the $500,000 award to her organization, which is about to start a $10-million fund-raising campaign. But while she is thankful for the money, she says what she welcomes most is the national visibility she will now have to talk about health and poverty issues.
