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GREENVILLE – The local Healthy Opportunities Pilot (HOP) will hold a free community event, “Information and Resource Sharing, and Eligibility Review,” from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. on Thursday, June 8 at the Hilton Greenville, in West Wing Rooms 1, 2 and 3.

The nonprofit HOP is an Access East program focused on four specific areas of non-medical need: 1) food availability, 2) housing, 3) interpersonal violence and toxic stress, and 4) transportation.

HOP has partnered with a number of regional Human Services Agencies (HSOs) to address those concerns for residents in need, in Beaufort, Bertie, Chowan, Edgecombe, Halifax, Hertford, Martin, Northampton and Pitt counties.

Several HOP-partnered HSOs will be among those sharing information at the Greenville event, along with a number of other community agencies providing non-medical and medical services.

“Our focus with this event is to educate the public about the Healthy Opportunities Pilot and regional health-service organizations, as well as other health-care organizations that provide services in our communities,” said Tina Dixon, Access East HOP vice president. “We would like our communities to know about the many services available that may help their members to live a lifestyle that is healthier.”

The Access East HOP is one of only three such pilot programs in North Carolina, selected by NC Medicaid as part of a new health-care initiative to tackle essential non-medical services as a way to improve patient health.

The NC Department of Social Services has called the three individual pilots “the nation’s first comprehensive Medicaid program to address non-medical drivers of health.”

To learn more about the Access East HOP, visit www.hopaccesseast.org.

The Greenville-based nonprofit Access East coordinates patient-focused, provider-driven health care for the Medicaid, uninsured and under-insured populations across 34 eastern N.C. counties.