Sentara distributes life-saving AEDs to community partners, offers training

Sentara is partnering with local organizations and faith leaders in our communities to distribute automated external defibrillators (AEDs) and provide life-saving education.

Our latest partnership provided 65 AEDs to faith leaders in Elizabeth City, NC. Partners received training on how to use them, perform CPR, and recognize the signs of a stroke. These gifts followed last year’s distribution of 100 AEDs to churches in south Hampton Roads.

The units cost $1,500 each and were paid for by the Sentara Foundation’s Heart Fund. For every minute a heart attack victim’s heart is stopped, they lose 10% of survivability. If someone suffers a heart attack at church, or anywhere, an AED can shock a stopped heart back into rhythm while waiting for an ambulance after calling 911.

The Sentara Community Engagement & Impact and Health Equity teams are building relationships with faith organizations throughout the region to improve population health and save lives, by sharing vital information through trusted voices in those communities and supporting health-focused initiatives with generous grants. Some examples:

In 2022, Sentara invested more than $260 million in our communities as part of our not-for-profit mission. This includes $48 million in Community Giving to support like-minded non-profits working to improve the social determinants of health, including food insecurity, behavioral health, safe housing and access to employment. We invested almost $7 million in health and prevention programs through screenings for cancer and other diseases and helping manage chronic conditions. We helped assure future access to care by investing $48.5 million in teaching and training of physicians and other allied health professionals. We also provided more than $157M in uncompensated medical care to indigent patients with no ability to pay.

In 2023, The Sentara Community Care Center at Berkley in Norfolk’s Berkley neighborhood partnered with the Food Bank of Southeastern Virginia and the Eastern Shore by funding refrigeration and storage equipment for The Community Feed at Berkley, a retail-sized space adjacent to the clinic, where patients can obtain fresh, healthy food at no cost.

This type of mission-focused support continues to grow with each passing year as Sentara remains committed to its purpose; to be the trusted partner to individuals and the community in their journey to health and well-being.