Lompoc Valley Community Healthcare Organization

Lompoc Valley Community Healthcare Organization (LVCHO) has been around for more than a quarter century, but it wasn’t until last year that the organization began to raise its public profile in the community and focus in earnest on local fundraising. 

That’s because the nonprofit, founded in 1999 by local leaders, largely doesn’t deal directly with people seeking medical help, but rather exists to tackle the systemic issues driving poor health in Lompoc, focusing on strategic, long-term solutions to address the root causes of health disparities at policy, systems, and environmental levels. 

“We’re not giving shots. We’re not doing vaccines. We don’t see patients,” explained Development Manager Alex Murkison, a Lompoc native who previously worked in the development department at the much larger Fund for Santa Barbara. “We stay behind the scenes. What we do is facilitate, convene, support and coordinate our partners, serving as a one-stop shop for everything health and wellness in Lompoc but without actual boots on the ground. People in other organizations have always come to us, and we’ve been the ones to connect everyone, facilitating and supporting.”

In short, as LVCHO Executive Director Ashley Costa says on the organization’s website, LVCHO is the face of healthcare in town – as in F.A.C.E (Facilitate, Assess, Convene and Educate) for the community healthcare system.

There was no great need for fundraising to support their work, Murkison said, because of the organization’s unique model for income that comes from a longstanding contract with the Federal Bureau of Prisons to coordinate healthcare services for the 3,000 inmates at the Lompoc prison. “Any specialty healthcare services, anything they cannot coordinate on site, we’re in charge of handling the paperwork, contracting and scheduling the doctors, handling billing, paying the claims.” 

The contract, which annually ranges up to almost $5 million, has always provided a little extra buffer to keep the organization going and successful in its community work, Murkison said. But two years ago, the nonprofit’s board decided that relying largely on a single source may not be sustainable in perpetuity, and their mission – “To improve the health of the community by ensuring equal access to a coordinated, local system of health promotion, disease prevention, and high-quality treatment service” – too important to fall by the wayside. 

Which is why LVCHO has been out there promoting their services and what they’ve accomplished over the last 25-plus years via a strategy to address such key areas as healthy eating, physical activity, mental wellness, healthcare access and community resilience. Along the way, the nonprofit has tackled needs such as outpatient alcohol treatment, dental services, pediatric clinic improvements, access to pharmaceuticals, childhood obesity prevention, walkability and bike-ability on Lompoc city streets, and access to healthy produce, mental wellness programs and family caregiver support.

“We want to know why people are obese enough to get weight loss surgery,” Murkison said. “Maybe they weren’t eating right or it’s that they didn’t have access to exercise equipment or to a recreation area. When folks are struggling with substance abuse we want to know if it’s because they don’t have the basic resources they need.”

The whole idea is that by understanding the community and its needs, LVCHO is able to prioritize interventions focused on local policy changes, infrastructure and system improvements, events and educational offerings that make the greatest impact for all. 

LVCHO’s initiatives include the “Healthy Happenings” newsletter that keeps residents informed about health topics. Its “Vaccinate Lompoc” campaign raised COVID-19 awareness, and the Lompoc Counts Census outreach ensured community representation. Physical activity programs like Healthy People Healthy Trails and the Lompoc Open Streets event have encouraged residents to get active, a key factor for health. 

The organization has also been involved in installing bicycle repair and water refill stations, launching the Route One Farmers Market to improve access to healthy food, and offering promotion and education for students to walk and bike via Safe Routes to School. 

A recent initiative called Cafecito Comunitario was launched to build trust, foster connection, and promote resource-sharing within the Latino community.

“It’s a monthly space we created for them to be able to come together and discuss healthcare issues in Spanish, not just with a translator,” Murkison said. “It’s a chance to discuss in their own language issues that are important to them regarding health and wellness, and to elevate those issues to get more attention. We have partners come in and do workshops, in such areas as financial wellness or emotional wellness, too.”

Other LVCHO programs include the Healthy Eating Active Living “HEAL” cities initiative and wellness fair; Caring Together Lompoc caregiver support collaborative; and co-chairing the campaign to renovate the Lompoc Community Track & Field at Huyck Stadium. Its Wellness Empowerment & Leadership Network (WELN) is a quarterly peer-learning and mental wellness series for nonprofit and civic leaders to build relationships, share resources and strengthen leadership capacity.

LVCHO’s just-launched California Office of Traffic Safety program includes both educational outreach and infrastructure improvements to support walking, biking and overall safety. In partnership with the City of Lompoc and Lompoc Unified School District, the nonprofit is leading community education, outreach events, and the distribution of over 500 helmets, bike locks, wristbands, and visibility gear to support safe routes to school and active transportation at four of Lompoc’s underserved schools: Lompoc Valley Middle School, Lompoc High School, Hapgood Elementary, and Clarence Ruth Elementary.

“It’s a huge program, something much more hands-on than our usual efforts where we actually distribute materials to the community,” Murkison said. 

Such endeavors – and even talking about its own programs – are still very new practices for the quarter-century old organization, Murkison said. 

“We’ve never had to put our foot forward before. The fact that we’re even in a position of wanting to talk about and highlight our programs in this way – everything is super new,” he said. “But we realize that it’s necessary in order to fundraise in these different ways. We need to show the work we’re doing, and we’re proud to do it.”  

Visit https://healthylompoc.org for more info