History
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1995
First Hand Foundation established
We helped our first child, providing case grant funding. In 1998, Nathan (pictured with our founder Neal Patterson) received funding.
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2000
Love Bag program introduced
We initially created this program to provide comfort items to children going through the foster system and have since expanded to offer this program to more children who face difficult circumstances.
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2006
Healthe Kids Institute founded
We established a second 501(c)(3) under the First Hand brand to focus on proactive population health programming, introducing several school health initiatives.
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2007
First wellness screening conducted
We completed our first free wellness screening at Barry Elementary School.
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2010
First healthy lifestyle course completed
The first high school class completed our healthy lifestyle program in the Blue Valley (Kansas) School District.
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2015
20th anniversary celebrated
At this point in our history, we had helped more than 200,000 children through all of our programs. Notably, we had awarded $20 million in individual medical grants for children's health.
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2018
Social-emotional wellness program launched
Middle school students in the Raytown, Missouri, School District participated in our comprehensive social-emotional wellness (mental well-being) program.
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2020
First Hand expanded to Cerner Charitable Foundation
Building on a 25-year history as First Hand, we expanded our mission and rebranded as Cerner Charitable Foundation.
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2023
Cerner Charitable Foundation evolved to Oracle Health Foundation
Following Oracle's acquisition of Cerner, we evolved into Oracle Health Foundation and continued striving toward our vision of an equitable world where individuals and communities thrive.
Our founders
Our Oracle Health Foundation (formerly First Hand) founders began with one vision in mind—to support the industry that Oracle knows so well while closing the gaps in healthcare with a focus on children. Today, the foundation continues to live out this vision of building healthier tomorrows and stronger communities around the world.
Jeanne Lillig-Patterson
Founder (1958—2017)
Jeanne created the vision, pouring her heart into the foundation and advocating for those—especially children—with medical and health needs.
"It's all about knowing what's the right thing to do. There needs to be a soul to a corporation."
Neal Patterson
Founder (1949—2017)
Neal provided incredible foresight, predicting how healthcare would evolve and how the foundation could make a difference, especially with technology leading the way.
"We wanted to make sure we gave back to our community. We decided to do it ourselves and created our own foundation called First Hand."
Cliff Illig
Founder
Cliff brought his experience building high-performing organizations and his commitment to the community, developing a new philanthropic model through the foundation.
"The objective has always been to do something meaningful; do something that makes a difference...for individual young people. Every one of them is special—every one of them has a great story."
