The St. Joseph Community Health Foundation: a hospital converted into grants

Born of the 1998 sale of St. Joseph Medical Center — the hospital itself is in Hospitals

Origin: The Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ, founded at Dernbach, Germany in 1851, sent sisters to Fort Wayne in 1868 and in 1869 founded St. Joseph Hospital, the city's first hospital (a 2026 diocesan profile gives 1865 for the hospital's establishment; the foundation's and the hospital's received date is 1869, and 1865 was the smallpox-epidemic year that moved the sisters to act). When the sisters sold St. Joseph Medical Center to Quorum Health Group in 1998, they created the St. Joseph Community Health Foundation out of part of the proceeds — an initial investment of some $20 million — and kept its work in Allen County. Its sibling HealthVisions Midwest, based in Hammond, has made parallel health grants elsewhere in the sisters' region.

The record: The foundation reported assets of $38 million or more in 2019, had granted about $24 million by 2022, and by mid-2026 reported more than $30.6 million awarded in 2,088 grants to some 295 local organizations, working in four areas: food insecurity and nutrition, care for immigrants and refugees, access to quality affordable health care, and prenatal and infant care. Its grants run small and frequent — a June 2026 round put $673,570 out to 31 Allen County organizations — and it collaborates with more than 100 community nonprofits. Leadership passed at the end of 2025 from Meg Distler, its executive director for most of its life and a hospital administrator before it, to Matt Smith, who took full leadership on 1 January 2026.

Sources:

1. St. Joseph Community Health Foundation (sjchf.org), "Our History" and the Journal Gazette Q&A with Meg Distler (republished 2022) — the Poor Handmaids' 1851 founding and 1868 arrival, the 1869 hospital, the 1998 sale, and about $24 million granted by 2022.
2. Input Fort Wayne, "Maintaining health care for the most vulnerable" — the foundation founded with part of the 1998 sale proceeds, "a total investment of $20 million on the table"; Today's Catholic, 25 April 2019 — the foundation's assets "have grown to $38 million or more."
3. St. Joseph Community Health Foundation, 1 June 2026 release — $673,570 to 31 organizations; Today's Catholic, June 2026 — more than $30.6 million through 2,088 grants to about 295 organizations; four funded areas; the Distler–Smith succession (also 21Alive, January 2026).