Mancos is in the running for a $150,000 grant to renovate the former medical-clinic building on Railroad Avenue, according to Mike Guillette, a physicians’ assistant and member of a working group that is trying to bring a health clinic to Mancos.

Guillette said he had received a call Tuesday morning from Susan Hill of Caring for Colorado and that she said the statewide health-care foundation was responding to a letter of request submitted earlier under the auspices of Mancos Valley Resources, Inc.

Caring for Colorado has shortened the turnaround time for a formal grant application to less than three weeks, Guillette said, but foundation officials also hope to make the grants available sooner, possibly by mid-August.

He said Hill had described the grants as "highly competitive," but said she was very supportive of the Mancos proposal.

An end-of-August announcement of federal funding will also influence whether a community health center will reopen in the former Mancos Family Medicine building.

Earlier this year, Valley-Wide Health Services, Inc., of Alamosa applied for a $500,000 New Start/ Expansion grant from the Department of Health and Human Services to operate a medical clinic in Mancos. The initial round of 25 grants, worth $11.3 million, was announced March 27. On June 5, nearly $9.2 million in grants was distributed among another 29 local health centers. Neither round included an award for the Mancos proposal.

The third and final funding round in fiscal year 2001, with approximately 40 new grants, is expected to be announced in August. Valley-Wide CEO Marguerite Salazar says she has "finally received an official reply from the (Health Resources and Services Administration) that states that we are still in the running and that we will be notified on the Aug. 31, 2001, notification date. It essentially says that we were approved but not funded and deferred for later funding."

Funds for the New Start/Expansion awards come from the HRSA’s Consolidated Health Centers program.

Health centers serve all people regardless of their ability to pay and target their services in areas where people face barriers to accessing high-quality, culturally sensitive care.