Supporting Your Healthcare Team: Scholarships

By giving to the Sauk Prairie Healthcare Foundation, you support your local healthcare system and your community.

Your support funds nursing scholarships. In 2018, we provided $25,000 total to 15 of our nurses. Allison Simon, a nurse in Acute Care, is a three-time recipient of the scholarship. Here’s her story.

Allison Simon: I started working for Sauk Prairie Healthcare in 2015, and I started working here because I came here a couple times with my grandma for surgeries, ER visits, and I was really impressed with how people treated her and the facilities.

People seemed extra caring here, and I thought this might be somewhere I would like to work, potentially, after I graduate. So I applied to the ER and was very excited that I got a position here, and the rest is kinda history.

I’ve had the privilege of getting the scholarship here for the last three years. I just recently received my third scholarship here in August. It has definitely helped me lower the amount of student debt I have, and also it helps continue to push me along to keep going to school, in knowing that I have that background of support that people are saying, “Hey, we want you to keep going to school. We value the knowledge that you’re gaining and what you’re giving back to us,” that I feel that extra push.

Sometimes I’m like, “Why am I doing this? I don’t want to keep going to school.” And it’s just really nice to feel that sense of support. It’s more than just getting money from somebody to go to school, and I see it as more of an investment from people that live around me, and I think just feeling that is partially why I’ve decided to keep going to school.

My goal is really to gain more perspective on a population scale, so looking at what things we can be doing to keep people healthier, keeping people out of the hospital. My master’s I’m working on is in healthcare leadership and administration.

I know that the healthier your population is overall, the better it is for your whole economy, as well as people’s livelihood: they feel better, they’re doing better, businesses keep people at work. So I think it’s better for the area overall and that’s what’s driving me to keep going to school.

I plan to stay in the area. I’m from DeForest. My grandparents grew up here. I like working at the hospital here. I like living here, so feel like I want to stay in this area and continue working with the people I’ve already been working with.

Without the scholarship funds, I believe that I would still have worked to become a nurse, but I don’t think I would be as motivated to continue on with my master’s degree. I know that no matter what, this knowledge is helping me improve care for my patients and that’s my main goal, and I feel that this scholarship has really driven me to focus on that being my goal for continuing my education.

I decided to stay here after I graduated from nursing school because I liked it, but also I’ve been really well-supported by other nurses who have been here for a number of years, and I feel like there was a strong sense of comfort in knowing my staff and I think that they see that I want to do good patient care, and so I think that I’ve been warmly welcomed into the Sauk Prairie family.

I think the people who support the foundation by giving money recognize the value in the continuing education of the healthcare providers in their community, and I also think that staff take that responsibility very seriously.

Your support helps fund nursing scholarships and so many other worthy causes in our community.

Find out more at www.SaukPrairieHealthcare.org/Foundation. Thank you.

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