Palm Beach County’s first lady of healthcare, Yolette Bonnet, is announcing her retirement after 20 dedicated years at FoundCare. The New York-bred CEO has led a fruitful career with a unique calling after experiencing the hardships of insurance-bound healthcare that led to her late mother’s death. Growing up, her mother brought her family to the U.S. from Haiti, and worked two jobs, seven days a week as a single-mother to make sure Bonnet received a respected private school education.

It was not until her mother’s massive stroke caused by a deep vein thrombosis that she learned more about healthcare’s often financial constrictions. Since then, Bonnet has strived to provide exceptional and affordable healthcare to the underserved through the seven FoundCare locations she has developed across Palm Beach County.

Building FoundCare into the comprehensive healthcare provider it is today was not an overnight process. In 2001, Bonnet was hired as CEO for the formerly known Comprehensive AIDS Program (CAP), a social service organization based in West Palm Beach. Early on, she was able to determine the need for primary healthcare services of many low-income county residents after discovering the only Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) in Palm Beach County was located in Belle Glade.

Having worked with federally funded facilities in New York, Bonnet understood the value of offering community health centers focused on serving at-risk and underserved populations. Under the Public Health Service Act, FQHCs qualify for federal grants and offer access to comprehensive primary care, regardless of a patient’s ability to pay.

Fast forward to 2021, she is the unsung hero for families who do not have to think about sacrificing a month’s worth of rent to maintain their health. Today, the Palm Springs location offers a full scope of services, including pediatric and adult primary care, women’s health services as well as mammography screenings, chronic disease management, behavioral health services, dentistry, pharmacy, laboratory services, and x-rays. Bookending her role as CEO, Bonnet and FoundCare will be unveiling a new health center later this year, located on Okeechobee Boulevard in West Palm Beach.

Her tenure as CEO will continue through January 2022 and following a national search, her successor will be named early next year. She will continue to work with the organization by serving as a consultant on the board.