4. In the Community

Dean Health Plan in the community

Our employees join fellow volunteers to help make our community better. Throughout the year, our employees—your friends and neighbors—are busy helping out through a variety of activities and events.

Our values emphasize both community and stewardship. We cultivate relationships that inspire service with special concern for the poor and marginalized. What’s more, we deploy our resources responsibly so we best care for our environment. Examples of our community work include:

Healthy Parks, Healthy You partnership

Being outdoors supports both our physical and mental health. Since 2001, we have collaborated with our Healthy Parks, Healthy You (YouTube video) partners to inspire people of all ages to improve their health while exploring Dane County’s beautiful park system. Together with Dane County Parks, the Foundation for Dane County Parks, and SSM Health, we shine a light on the rich variety of activities our parks offer. Here are a few highlights from this program:

  • The purchase of an all-terrain wheelchair to make trails accessible to people with physical limitations.
  • Helping to host 17 events—bringing games, nature-focused crafts, food carts, face painting, plant and seed giveaways, fishing pole and tackle giveaways, health education, naturalist-guided activities, and more.
  • Offering Lyft rides to our events so people who do not have personal transportation options can attend.
  • Supporting outreach efforts to reach populations that don’t typically use the park system for a variety of reasons. These events are meant to encourage the idea that outdoor activities are for everyone. This outreach brought acclaimed outdoor enthusiast, Emily Ford to speak about the “Breaking Trail” documentary of her record-setting winter hike of the Ice Age Trail. In collaboration with the Nelson Institute, we hosted a screening of the “Blackwaters: Brotherhood in the Wild” documentary, which follows five men on a journey to the Arctic Circle as they explore how black men hold space in nature.

Second Harvest Foodbank of Southern Wisconsin

Food security is important to good health. We dedicate our time, donations, and company resources to support Second Harvest Foodbank. Our efforts include volunteering and staff-led fundraisers, such as a cookbook sale, paint night, and silent auction, where all dollars raised support the goal of ending hunger in our community. We have supported Second Harvest Foodbank since 1999.

We are also a proud sponsor of NBC15’s Share Your Holidays campaign. 2022 marked the third straight year the effort raised more than five million meals for Second Harvest Foodbank, which has had a huge impact on the lives of many people in the region. In addition to our sponsorship, team members donate food, sort donations, and work the phone bank lines during their telethon.

Triangle Community Ministry Food Market

Access to food is a real challenge for many people. Every month, a crew of volunteers unloads a food supply truck from Second Harvest, sets up a food market, and helps residents of the Triangle Neighborhood Apartments to shop for their groceries. 

This group of volunteers splits up and also delivers groceries to folks in the surrounding neighborhood who are unable to attend the pantry. Many of the residents are living on very limited incomes and depend on these fresh foods to get them through the month.

Centro Hispano

We were proud to sponsor Centro Hispano’s Becas Scholarship Award Celebration and grant $10,000 to a college-bound Centro Hispano youth. The Becas Program has offered annual scholarships to students who have been involved with Centro Hispano to help further their educational goals by helping cover the cost of higher education and to promote educational equity among Latinx students.

As part of our Healthy Parks, Healthy You partnership, we also provided dinner for Centro Hispano youth who were enrolled in the Junior Naturalist program and their families at Lussier Family Heritage Center. This Dane County Parks program provides summer programming for kids where they hike, bike, canoe, explore and learn about nature while exploring Lunney Lake Farm County Park.

A school supply drive we hosted helped to ease the beginning-of-the-schoolyear costs and get students off on the right foot for Centro Hispano’s youth.

Rebalanced-Life Wellness Association — Men's Health & Education Center 

Access to care for everyone, means our communities are healthier. We were proud to provide funding to support the Rebalanced-Life Wellness Association’s work that provides preventative screenings, health education, and quality healthcare to uninsured and under-insured Black men in Dane County, and to all who are impacted by disparities in healthcare.

Since opening its doors, the center has served over 7,000 Black men, connecting them to health education services that address their health condition, and providing them access to healthy lifestyle groups like Black Men Run, Black Men Walk, and Black Men Cycle.

Adopt-a-Highway

A clean environment contributes to good health. Dean Health Plan adopted a highway near Beaver Dam, and our volunteer employees are helping to keep Wisconsin beautiful on a regular basis throughout the year.

Twice a year, a team of Dean Health Plan volunteers dedicates half of a day to help keep this stretch of the highway clean. People from the local community love the help, honking their thanks and occasionally stopping by to thank volunteers personally. On average, more than 15 volunteers donate almost 60 total hours to this environmental work.

Other community partnerships

  • Ronald McDonald Charities
  • Mobile Vaccine Clinics with SSM Health, UW Health, Group Health Cooperative
  • Harambee Village Doulas—more coming in 2024!