Six Worcester agencies win Blue Cross funding for healthcare services

Photo | Grant Welker Kennedy Community Health Center in Worcester

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Six Worcester agencies have won a share of more than $3 million in funding from the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation to improve healthcare services.

The grants, which the Boston insurer's philanthropic arm announced Thursday, include $200,000 for UMass Memorial Health Care's Community Healthlink to improve access to behavioral health urgent care and $45,000 each to the Edward M. Kennedy Community Health Center and the Family Health Center of Worcester for helping eligible consumers obtain health insurance coverage.

In other funding, the Community Builders, a nonprofit with local offices in Boston, received $75,000 for helping address what's known as social determinants of health: challenges that can include poverty and a lack of access to education, child care or transportation. Three other agencies — the Family Health Center of Worcester, the Regional Environmental Council and the YWCA Central Massachusetts — each obtained between $12,500 and $15,096 for special initiatives helping people of color, including with the coronavirus pandemic.

In all, the foundation awarded 64 community-based programs and projects, largely in the state's biggest cities.