Project: CHESS - (community health and education support services) has been operating out of Calvary Episcopal Church Administration  Building since December of 2008.  A grant of $1,200 from the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina - Social Ministries Department marked CHESS's beginning, and they remain our most consistent supporter.

Our focus is to provide medical, health and education support services to the underserved and/or the medically at-risk population.  The receivers of these services are without the financial resources to afford them.  For the most part, participants are uninsured, underinsured, low income, no income, etc.

The following program activities are at the centerpiece of our efforts; emergency prescription assistance, eye care assistance, medical transportation assistance, medical appointment assistance, prostate cancer screening and barbershop/salon health talk "rap sessions."  Our primary partners are:  Franklin C. Fetter Health Center, MUSC Storm Eye Institute, Meeting Street Piggly Wiggly Pharmacy, South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (SCDHEC) - Region 7 Community Health Services Division, East Cooper Community Outreach Med-I-Assist Program and Closing the Gap in Health Care, Inc.

In June of 2010 Project CHESS and Calvary Day School received a Blessing of immense proportion!  The UTO Grant of $28,000 made it possible for CHESS to purchase a bus that is being shared with Calvary Episcopal Church Day School.  Instructional field trips are now a reality for the Day School, and Project CHESS now has the ability to transport patients to health screening and medical appointments.  Indeed, the bus is a Blessing that continues to give and pay dividends across many different church programs and/or activities.

Since its inception in 2008, CHESS has provided various levels of health support services to more than eight hundred (800) participants throughout Charleston, Berkeley and Dorchester counties.  The downturn in the economy has increased our referral requests at least 60%, and it remains a challenge for CHESS to raise the necessary funds to meet our daily demands.  However, we remain Blessed and are moving forward unabated, with much faith and courage.

As we move forward in 2011 we have expanded our programming efforts; we have taken on three additional projects, namely, Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP), Cancer-Health Wise Initiative and Community Gardening.  NFP is an evidence-based community health program that helps transform the lives of vulnerable mothers pregnant with their first child.  SCDHEC is the primary sponsor of NFP; we will work in partnership with them to move NFP forward.  The Cancer-Health Wise Initiative will expand the prostate cancer screening to include colon and breast cancer health education counseling and screening; Closing the Gap in  Health Care, Inc., and MUSC Hollings Cancer Mobile Health Unit will be our primary partners in this effort.  Finally, CHESS is partnering with St. James-Santee Family Health Center, in McClellanville, SC, to establish a "community garden" onsite at the Health Center.