CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Camino Health Center recently received $50,000 from the Healthy Charlotte Alliance.
Charlotte's Latino population was reported as one of the fastest growing in Mecklenburg County.
"In just about the past 10 years, they've grown about 52%," Paulina Martinez, director of health and wellness at Camino Vida, said. "There's limited organizations that work directly or offer direct services to the community."
While Camino has been providing services for the past 25 years, Camino Vida's health and wellness program started in 2021. She said the recent grant is making a positive impact.
"It's really hard to find programs like this in their own language and also having the staff to be part of the same community," Martinez said. "What we do in our cooking classes or nutritional programs, all of our classes and recipes are tailored to the Hispanic diet, the Latino diet. So we don't want to change what they're eating. We just want to kind of figure out how to make it healthier."
Martinez said this new grant will help continue Camino Vida's one-year program in chronic disease management.
"We get our referrals from the clinic if they need any type of requirement, which is type two diabetes, hypertension, high triglycerides, high cholesterol, or obesity," Martinez explained.
She said seeing the clients' transformation is a testament to the program's success.
Referring to a current client at Camino Vida, Martinez described her journey.
"She actually lost 20 pounds and she was also on our one-year program," Martinez said. "She had high cholesterol and hypertension and now she's just normal."
The health center also offers primary care at its clinic, behavioral health services, and a food pantry.