Our History
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1995
First Hand Foundation Established
We helped our first child, providing case grant funding. In 1998, Nathan (pictured with our founder Neal Patterson) received funding
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2000
Love Bag Program Introduced
We created this program to initially provide comfort items to children going through the foster system and have since expanded to offer this program to more children who face difficult circumstances.
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2006
Healthe Kids Institute Founded
We established a second 501(c)3 under the First Hand brand to focus on proactive population health programming, introducing several school health initiatives.
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2007
First Wellness Screening Conducted
We completed our first free wellness screening at Barry Elementary School.
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2010
First Healthy Lifestyle Course Completed
The first high school class completed our healthy lifestyle program in the Blue Valley (Kansas) School District.
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2015
Celebrated 20th Anniversary
At this point in our history, we helped over 200,000 children through all of our programs. Notably, we had awarded $20 million in individual medical grants for children's health.
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2018
Social-Emotional Wellness Program Launched
Middle school students in the Raytown, MO, School District participated in our comprehensive social-emotional wellness (mental well-being) program.
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2020
First Hand Expanded to Cerner Charitable Foundation
Building on a 25-year history as First Hand, we expanded our mission and rebranded as Cerner Charitable Foundation.
