INTRODUCING FANNY!
Fanny Fund logo
In Texas, the need for preventive reproductive health care — especially birth control — has never been greater.
- Texas is ranked worst in the nation for health care access and affordability. Texas leads the nation in people without health insurance — double the national average — because it is one of only 10 states that does not provide a health care program for all low-income people.
- There are hundreds of thousands of adults who are too poor to qualify for subsidies to obtain insurance under the Affordable Care Act, but not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid. These are often hard-working poor people who have low-wage jobs that don’t provide health insurance.
- Maternal mortality rates in Texas more than doubled between 1999 and 2019, with Black people affected the most.
Planned Parenthood South Texas is committed to stepping into the gap created by the state’s cruel policies and is proud to work with individuals, local governments, agencies, and partner organizations to meet the crucial need for health care. It is our moral imperative to do so.
To that end, we officially launched the Fanny Fund on June 24, 2024.
The Fanny Fund will help people without health insurance or financial resources receive essential health services at PPST at no cost to them. The Fund was established by long-time Board member Elise Boyan and named for her great-grandmother, Fanny Goldstein. This gesture of love in honor of a cherished great-grandmother will now help pay for all of the compassion that we want to show Planned Parenthood patients.
We have distributed Fanny Fund vouchers to a number of partner organizations — the YWCA, SA Youth, Thru Project and Empower House in San Antonio and Good Neighbor Settlement House and Friendship of Women in Brownsville. These extraordinary organizations are deeply embedded in the community and connected to clients who don’t always understand the breadth of services available at Planned Parenthood or how to connect to them. The partners identify people in need of birth control, cancer screenings, HPV vaccines, STI testing and treatment, menopause care, primary care, gender-affirming hormone therapy, or any of our other services and give them a Fanny Fund voucher to receive that care at no cost.
The launch of the Fanny Fund is a reminder to all of us who work and volunteer for Planned Parenthood South Texas that while we may be 85, we are just getting started.