In the early 1990s, Memorial established the Community Benefit Fund and began the practice of "tithing," a policy of reinvesting ten percent of the previous year's excess operating revenue into community health improvement. From the outset, our principle tithing priority has been to improve the health of underserved populations by encouraging and funding development in the neighborhoods, schools and congregations of our community. Throughout this process, we have been especially interested in servicing the needs of seniors and children. Prevention Initiatives (PI) grew out of a strong partnership between Memorial Hospital and the South Bend Community School Corporation (SBCSC) that originated in several collaborative projects designed to benefit school-aged children. In the words of Memorial Hospital Vice-President Carl Ellison, "Prevention Initiatives is a story about how a health organization and a school system can build a relationship over time that results in products and projects that are mutually beneficial for their common goals."

The initial effort, a five-year commitment that focused on school-aged children, involved a partnership with SBCSC that provided funding for school nurses and health aides (see School Health Partnership Program learning history). The goal of this effort, Ellison explains, was to build capacities into the system that would increase both the treatment available in schools and the efficiency with which treatment is administered: "This initiative was designed to free nurses from paperwork to allow them to focus more fully on the health of the children. The result is a more systematic capability in schools to reduce the number of school days lost to sickness."

Prevention Initiatives became the second tier of the relationship between Memorial and SBCSC. At the forefront of these initiatives was a growing concern over the teen pregnancy rate (third highest in the state) and the infant mortality rate (higher than the state average) in St. Joseph County. These discouraging statistics strengthened our resolve to take an active part in developing prevention and abstinence programming for South Bend's middle schools. Today, there are four thriving programs in place that are designed to help our young people successfully avoid the temptations of premature sexual activity and substance abuse: (1) Sex Can Wait, (2) Baby Think It Over, (3) S.O.A.R. (Self, Others and Respect), and (4) T.N.T. (Towards No Tobacco). In addition, we offer a number of injury prevention programs to educate audiences from pre-school age to retirement in trauma safety.