Worcester nonprofits land $350K in grants to support healthcare, food, housing access
Photo | Courtesy of Walk for Hunger
Walk for Hunger wins $75K grant to support nutrition in Worcester.
The Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation in Boston has awarded $350,000 to three Worcester charities to improve behavioral health care, housing, and food insecurity.
Community Healthlink in Worcester, affiliated with UMass Memorial Health Care, and one of only three licensed behavioral health urgent care centers, received a $200,000 grant under the Expanding Access to Behavioral Health Urgent Care program. The initiative promises to build on the state’s Emergency Services Program system and expands the organizations’ ability to provide community-based behavioral health urgent care. Community Healthlink plans to launch a process to provide clients with access to same-day/next-day medication assisted treatment, and hire case managers to provide follow-up services to clients, among other initiatives.
In addition, two nonprofits will receive $75,000 each under Going Beyond Health Care: Addressing Social Determinants Through a Cross-Sector Approach grant program to increase collaboration between healthcare organizations and social services agencies.
Project Bread’s Walk for Hunger, a statewide food security organization dedicated to combating hunger, will address the issue of food insecurity by using Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program resources to increase the consumption of healthy foods among the patients of Family Health Center of Worcester.
The Community Builders, a nonprofit real estate developer, will use the grant to change practices potentially inadvertently exacerbating residents’ stress and trauma. The grant also will support the engagement of Health Champions to support community residents in accessing mental health care through the Family Health Center of Worcester and Worcester Addresses Childhood Trauma.
The mission of the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation is to expand access to health care for the needy.
WBJ Web Partners
Most Recent
Most Recent
0 Comments