coalition history

Our Vision

innovating to inspire, impact, and invest in healthy lives to build healthy communities for tomorrow.

The goal of the Grant County Prevention Collaborative (GCPC) is to pioneer, grow, and sustain a community-wide health coalition, organized and committed to healthy, safe community of all people who are connected to others. GCPC will strive to minimize the negative effects of substance abuse and all addictions while maximizing the community’s ability to be healthy, active, and physically and mentally strong.

Now branded Impact Ulysses, our resolve is to harness the power of a coalition to come together for the purpose of gaining influence, impact, and more power than individuals or organizations can on their own.

Our community has an incredible history of banding together to work on difficult issues, find solutions, and implement strategies until the crisis passes. Our tendency, however, has been to disconnect as an organized faction until the next emergency, which inevitably comes with warnings and notice, but we as community fail to act presentably, and instead spend more energy and efforts in intervention and restoration.

Grant County Community Foundation, from our earliest organizational efforts, has been interested in and involved in partnership, supporting and working with health and nonprofit agencies in Grant County. Shortly after we organized, we established a county fund with the Western Kansas Community Foundation, to provide direct support to nonprofit services in our county. We were governed by a Community Advisory Committee, which became the start of our Grant County Community Foundation board of directors.

Our Community Advisory Committee was invited by the Western Kansas Community Foundation to participate in a Nutrition and Physical Activity Initiative (NPA). The initiative was focused on improving nutrition, increasing physical activity and minimizing screen time.

During the three years of that initiative, we convened several focus groups. We sponsored community meetings to support community wide efforts to promote healthy eating and active living. We ended the initiative with a task force of dedicated people who represented a broad base of sectors.

Today, there is a nature trail connecting the town of Ulysses to the golf course/walking trails southeast of town and an impressive change in the messaging around these issues. There were several other successes for many agencies including our elementary school who enjoy healthy “Snack Attacks” and “Drink Think” breaks during class.

As recent as three to four years ago, in response to poor ratings provided in several agency reports, the GCCF and the Grant County Health Department led an initiative which surveyed the community and led to the development of a Community Health Improvement Plan. A short-term coalition of 18 members met to develop and conduct community surveys, with the goal of determining health needs and concerns in the community.

Our Mission

IMPACT ULYSSES works to promote healthy lifestyles and reduce risky behaviors for youth, their families, and our diverse community.

The survey results were compiled, evaluated, and shared with the community. The Community Health Improvement Plan was developed and shared community-wide. Impact Ulysses was awarded a KPCCI planning and implementation grant and a CDRR Planning grant. We currently participate in the Kansas Communities That Care (KCTC) survey and have created several strong community partnerships. We have direction and plans to strengthen prevention and intervention efforts in our county.