Michigan Health Improvement Alliance, Inc.

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Michigan Health Improvement Alliance, Inc.

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Breaking down barriers to equitable health and well-being across central and eastern Michigan.

10/30/2026

"The best part about being part of the Michigan Health Improvement Alliance is that we don't have to have all the answers."

Our CEO, Heidi Tracy, on what excites her most: bringing together the people of our region who have worked on these issues for years, and listening as they say, this is what it would take.

10/30/2026

That's October.

We put a few of our own terms into plain language, from social determinants of health to ALICE. We shared our new role as Hub Lead for the Central Michigan Hub. We celebrated farmers, farm to school, and World Food Day with the people behind the Northeast Michigan Healthy Food Initiative, and introduced you to teammates and partners from Standish to Saginaw. And we reminded you about Take Back Day.

Every bit of it happens because partners across the region decided to work together. Thank you for following along. Sign up at mihia.org to keep up with what's next.

10/29/2026

It's Red Ribbon Week, the nation's largest and longest-running drug-use prevention campaign. Most prevention work is about stopping substance use before it starts. That work matters. So does what happens after an overdose, because the days that follow can shape what comes next.

Since 2020, the CAREing Quick Response Team has followed up with overdose survivors in our region through a visit from a peer recovery coach and an EMT. The goal is simple: connect people to care, services, and basic needs, and take away as many barriers as possible along the way. MiHIA coordinates the team, and partners include Peer 360 Recovery Alliance, Mobile Medical Response, Great Lakes Bay Health Centers, and Ten16 Recovery Network.

If you or someone you love needs recovery support, call 211 and they will point you to help close to home.

10/28/2026

How do you close gaps in a food system when everyone is working in a different corner of it?

With a Michigan Health Endowment Fund grant awarded in 2021, MiHIA brought food leaders from across central and eastern Michigan together in a nine-part cohort that met over eight months. The point was simple: learn what everyone else was doing and find where to work together. Three projects came out of it, and all three received funding:

Last Mile Delivery, led by Hidden Harvest, brought monthly food deliveries to people who couldn't get to a pantry.
The Community Cupboard, created by PartnerShift Network with Hidden Harvest, opened a choice-model food pantry in Saginaw.
Urban Agriculture, from the Saginaw Community Food Club and Kitchen with MSU Extension, set out to turn unused space in Saginaw into gardens and orchards.

That's collective impact in practice: people who care about the same problem, at the same table.

10/27/2026

One more plain-language post for Health Literacy Month. You may have seen the word ALICE on our website. Here's what it means.

ALICE stands for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed. It describes households that earn more than the poverty line but still can't cover the basic cost of living, like housing, childcare, food, transportation, and health care. These are working families. Many are one car repair or one missed paycheck away from falling behind.

ALICE families live in every community in our region. That's why so much of our partners' work, like the childcare effort in Bay City, is built with them in mind.

10/26/2026

We talk a lot about programs on this page. Here's the big picture behind all of them.

Our mission: the Michigan Health Improvement Alliance connects and empowers those who, together, are addressing obstacles to equitable health and well-being across lower Michigan.

That comes down to four things. We champion solutions that improve health and well-being. We unite people and resources to bring ideas to life. We find funding and expertise to support our partners' work. And we bring light to inequities in health and well-being so more people join in addressing them. The partners do the frontline work. We help make it possible.

10/23/2026

Partners in community. It was a phrase we kept hearing in Saginaw on October 21 and 22, when Healthy Community Zones grantees from all three zones, Chippewa County, Saginaw County, and the City of Detroit, came together to learn from each other.

Day one was a tour of three Saginaw grantees. The Urban Racquet Foundation hosted the group at Garber Courts for pickleball lessons from a pro. At Mission In The City (a subrecipient of ours), Denita Dorsey and Jeffrey Bulls shared the projects they are driving around Saginaw with Healthy Community Zones funding, work first developed by Nyesha Clark-Young, MiHIA's former Director of Advocacy for Community Resilience. That includes the Saginaw Citywide Food Collective, an upgraded basketball court and a new shuffleboard court at Mission in the City, and a youth golf program and park upgrades at Lawrence McKinney Veteran's Park through Saginaw County Community Action Committee (CAC). The group also toured the Saginaw Community Food Club & Kitchen.

Day two, at the Temple Theater, turned to policy, systems, and environmental change, and how organizations in different zones can share what they are learning with each other.

Thank you to MDHHS and the Healthy Community Zones teams for bringing all of us grantees together, and to Saginaw CAP, Mission in the City, Saginaw CAC, the Urban Racquet Sports Foundation - Garber Courts, Saginaw Community Food Club & Kitchen, and every grantee who showed up to build something together.

10/23/2026

Health challenges in our region are too complex for any one organization to solve on its own.

Our CEO, Heidi Tracy, on why MiHIA exists: hospitals, clinics and community groups all want to work together, but they are busy serving the people in front of them. MiHIA creates the capacity to make that collaboration happen.

It starts with one question: what would it take?

10/23/2026

Got old or unused medications in the cabinet? Tomorrow is your chance to clear them out safely.

Saturday, October 24 is National Prescription Drug Take Back Day. From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., collection sites across the country accept unneeded prescription medications, no questions asked. Getting them out of the house helps keep them away from kids, pets, and anyone who might misuse them.

October is also American Pharmacists Month. A good habit for any family, especially if someone is 65 or older and managing several prescriptions: bring the full list to your pharmacist and ask if everything is still needed.

10/22/2026

If you're part of a local group working on food or housing needs in Allegan, Arenac, Barry, Bay, Gratiot, Midland, Montcalm, Osceola, Saginaw, or Shiawassee county, we'd like to hear from you.

As the MDHHS-designated Hub Lead for our region, MiHIA helps make sure community priorities shape conversations about where resources could go. That starts with knowing what's already working and where the gaps are.

Food pantries, housing groups, faith communities, community organizations: if you've spotted an unmet need or a local solution others should know about, reach out through the contact form on our Hub page.

Address

PO Box 100
Freeland, MI
48623

Website

http://www.mihia.org/

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