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| Aubrey Madler, information specialist for the Rural Assistance Center |
For Marilyn Leeds, executive director of Lake Okeechobee Rural Health Network Inc. in South Bay, Fla., when searching for funding, her first stop is always Grand Forks, N.D.
Luckily for Leeds, she doesn’t have to leave the sunshine of Florida and physically travel over 2,000 miles north to retrieve the important information she needs to help support her Rural Health Network. Instead, she uses the Rural Assistance Center (RAC), an online information portal housed at the Center for Rural Health (CRH) at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences in Grand Forks.
To Leeds, “RAC is an invaluable resource. I tell people all of the time, if you don’t have it, you’re missing out!”
So why use a resource all the way in North Dakota when you’re in sunny Florida? Because, there really is no resource quite like the Rural Assistance Center. Initiated in 2002 through a partnership between the Center for Rural Health and the Rural Policy Research Institute (RUPRI) and funded by the Office of Rural Health Policy (ORHP), a federal agency in the Health Resources and Services Administration, RAC fills an important void for information on rural health and human services. Through the leadership of Director Kristine Sande, RAC makes information related to rural health and human services available through their comprehensive website, in addition to having information specialists who can provide direct assistance over the phone or via e-mail.
