Mississippi Today is grateful to announce the Sarah Yelena Haselhorst Fund for Health Journalism, a generous gift honoring the life of the young journalist for which it is named. 

The fund, provided by her parents, Melissa Stanza and Alan Haselhorst, will place an emerging journalist in a yearlong fellowship on the health team at Mississippi Today, beginning in 2026. Application information is available at this link for the fellowship, which offers journalists an immersive experience with the opportunity to report on issues including mental health, maternal health and underserved communities.

Sarah was 31 when she died in 2024 in South Carolina.

She was a native of St. Louis, Missouri and worked in health care before becoming a reporter with a passion for health journalism. She worked at the Clarion Ledger in Jackson from 2021 to 2022, where she covered the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on Mississippians and the health care system, among other pressing health topics. 

“Sarah dedicated so much of her energy and effort to shedding light on and sharing the truth about the realities too many Mississippians face when attempting to access health care, including mental health care,” said Laura Santhanam, Mississippi Today’s health editor. “It is our honor to carry her memory forward with this fellowship and to help early-career journalists continue that important work so more people in Mississippi and beyond can get the help they need.”

A graduate of the University of Missouri’s journalism school, Sarah was committed to truth and persistent in her search for it.

And though Sarah was opinionated, “she made such an effort in her reporting to be fair, to not put her perspective in there, and to give everybody a voice,” Stanza said.  

After leaving Mississippi in 2022 and moving to Hilton Head, South Carolina, to report on climate at The Island Packet, Sarah worked on a story about erosion of a barrier island owned by the University of South Carolina. The island was given to the university with the condition it remain untouched, save for the building of a lab, and that it be used for scientific and educational purposes. 

When Sarah was told she couldn’t visit the island as part of her reporting, she pushed back – and got her first inkling that there was more under the surface. 

She kept digging after publishing the first story. She interviewed the family of Philip Rhodes, the owner of Pritchards Island who donated it to the university decades ago. She also visited the island. Her months-long reporting uncovered disrepair and underfunding, in addition to a little known fact: that the deeds associated with the gift stipulated that if the University of South Carolina did not abide by its rules, Pritchards would go to the University of Georgia, Rhodes’ alma mater. 

A year after Sarah reported that story and others about the island, the South Carolina Legislature, with the support of the governor, passed a bill awarding $500,000 a year in recurring funding for Pritchards Island. The money allowed the university to revive its research efforts, which continue to this day.

A rocking chair bearing a plaque now sits on the front porch of the Beaufort College Building on the historic campus of the University of South Carolina-Beaufort. It reads: “In grateful memory of Sarah Yelena Haselhorst whose writing helped save Pritchards Island.”

The reporting by Sarah had the same kind of impact the journalists at Mississippi Today strive to achieve. The fellow will be urged to work in the same spirit as Sarah: to dig deeper, be persistent and uncover the unknown.

Stanza and Haselhorst said their daughter spoke highly of Mississippi Today when she was working in the state. The respect she held for the newsroom led them to fund a fellowship in her honor. 

“Sarah did not give her praise lightly,” Stanza said. “So when she said something was good, she really believed it was good.” 

A note Sarah wrote to readers and friends when she left Mississippi showed how deeply she was touched by her time in the state and the people she met. 

She wrote beautifully of the tragic, including the COVID-19 death of a 13-year-old girl, and the joyful, including the 100th birthday celebration of a Mississippi Delta native.    

“I hiked up to the Delta and saw high cotton, ate barbecue at a 97-year-old staple and met the bravest woman I’d ever spoken with. I went down to Biloxi to lie on the hottest sand my feet had ever encountered. Then ate some damn good fish tacos,” Sarah wrote. “I spent time with nurses, farmers, Freedom Riders, activists, people experiencing homelessness, people with fancy titles and those who were too young to talk.”

She also wrote: “The Delta is more breathtaking than you’d ever imagine. The politics more divisive. The heat and humidity more cloying. But at the crux of it all are the people. Mississippians are gracious. They share. They’re natural-born storytellers. And the people I spoke to on a regular basis craved good change.”

Stanza said Sarah always longed to return to Mississippi and to health journalism.

“It was her dream,” she said. “And in a way, now, she’s doing it.” 

If you would like to contribute to the Sarah Yelena Haselhorst Fund for Health Journalism, you may do so by donating here. Please include Haselhorst Fellowship as your reason for giving. For questions and additional information, please contact Mary Margaret White, Mississippi Today CEO & Executive Director at mwhite@mississippitoday.org.