JOPLIN, Mo. — A community collaborative gets a financial boost from one of Joplin’s hospitals. Mercy Joplin presented a check for $25,000 dollars to One Joplin Wednesday afternoon. The organization is made up of more than 100 other organizations, working together to build a stronger community. Grant funding has mainly helped One Joplin succeed so far, but this step of private funding from Mercy marks the organization’s second corporate partner.

The money will help fund one of the literacy projects.

“We collected books from our community and we will be placing stickers inside of them to direct families to a website. It’s ‘OneJoplin/read,’ and to encourage families to utilize literacy resources for adult literacy and children’s literacy resources,” said Nicole Brown, One Joplin Executive Director.

“This helps to aid in that process that the money’s coming locally and that I really think it’s important that community organizations help each other out. So, this is an example of that, where Mercy is invested in the work that One Joplin does and to their mission,” said Aaron Lewis, Mercy Joplin Community Health & Access Director.

One Joplin has been around for seven years to tackle issues in the community like literacy, health, poverty, and human services.