BOSTON - Thursday, July 16, 2020 - Mayor
Martin J. Walsh and the Boston Resiliency Fund Steering Committee today
announced over $1.2 million in new Boston Resiliency Fund (BRF) grants,
including several investments in organizations and areas identified by the
Mayor's
COVID-19 Health Inequities Task Force as critical to addressing the
inequities exposed by COVID-19. Since the creation of the BRF in
March, the fund has granted over $23.7 million to 306 nonprofit and local
organizations to provide support to Boston residents most impacted by
COVID-19. In total, 56 percent of grantee organizations are led by a person
of color and 52 percent of grantee organizations are led by a woman.
"Latinos
make up nearly 20 percent of Boston's population, but make up 28 percent of
our city's overall COVID-19 cases," said Mayor Walsh. "We
launched the COVID-19 Health Inequities Task Force early on this public
health emergency to help us identify actions to address these disparities
and I am pleased that through the Boston Resiliency Fund we are able to
make significant investments in organizations that will expand needed
outreach, education, and testing throughout our communities that have been
disproportionately impacted by this virus."
Mayor
Walsh created the COVID-19 Health Inequities Task Force to provide guidance
to the City of Boston in addressing current inequities exposed by COVID-19
data analysis, testing sites, and health care services. While the Task
Force closely collaborates with the BRF Steering Committee on all grant recommendations,
Task Force members specifically recommended the following grants that will
expand outreach and testing to support Boston's Latino community:
- Greater Boston Latino
Network (GBLN): Greater
Boston Latino Network is a coalition of nine Latino-led
community-based organizations that includes Sociedad Latina,
Inquilinos Boricuas en Acción (IBA), Boston Higher Education Resource
Center (HERC), Hyde Square Task Force, Latinos For Education, Latino
STEM Alliance, East Boston Ecumenical Community Council, La Alianza
Hispana, and Lawyers for Civil Rights. The network will receive
$275,000 to provide direct support services to the Latino community
and to hire bilingual Youth Outreach Workers directly from communities
to work collaboratively with health care providers from East Boston
Neighborhood Health Center and Whittier Street Health Center. The
Youth Outreach Workers will provide linguistically and culturally
competent support to the Latino community. These outreach workers will
help elevate care for mental and physical health, fill any gap in
resources created by language or cultural barriers, and connect
families to food, housing vouchers and direct financial help. GBLN
will create and launch a bilingual marketing campaign that will engage
youth, alongside artists, educators, musicians and other influencers
who will help us spread public health messages, to wear masks and
provide masks to their peers.
- Whittier Street Health Center:
Whittier Street Health Center will receive $75,000 to expand their
culturally sensitive outreach, enrollment and testing efforts. They
will utilize staff who understand the cultural challenges and share
similar backgrounds. The goal is to educate, empower, and engage
members of the Latino community to support testing and to encourage
long-term primary care relationships.
- East
Boston Neighborhood Health Center: East Boston Neighborhood
Health Center will receive $70,000 to boost outreach and engagement
efforts to support COVID-19 testing and contract tracing. The funding
will increase internal marketing and outreach capacity to work with
residents in East Boston and the South End and educate the community
on the benefits of being tested for COVID-19.
"Thank
you to Mayor Walsh and Chief Marty Martinez for forming the Health
Inequities Task Force to address the health and safety of our Black,
African American, and Latino communities," said Alexandra
Oliver-Davila, Executive Director of Sociedad Latina. "Since the start
of the pandemic, there has been a disproportionate number of COVID-19 cases
among Latinos, people of color, and people living in
economically-disadvantaged communities in Boston and on a national level.
We see the consequences that this pandemic has had on the youth and
families that we partner with, including little or no access to healthcare,
rising medical costs, ineligibility or lack of information for
unemployment, losing employment, and more. It is more crucial now than ever
before for us to address these inequities and provide healthcare, safety,
and financial assistance to everyone despite race, ethnicity,
socio-economic status, and immigration status. We are deeply appreciative
for the increased funding from the Boston Resiliency Fund to expand our resources
and strengthen our community during this trying time."
The
Fund serves every neighborhood in Boston, but has focused on the
neighborhoods hit hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic. A map
showing the neighborhood impact of Boston Resiliency Fund grantees across
the City of Boston can be found on the Fund's website.
Since the first round of fund distribution, the Fund has raised over $32.4
million from over 6,400 donors. The following grants were also announced
today:
BellXcel (The B.E.L.L. Foundation, Inc.): BellXcel will use the
grant to support the implementation of their new BellXcel summer learning
program, developed in direct response to the COVID-19 pandemic, in
partnership with Charlestown High School, Bridge Boston Charter School, and
the YMCA of Greater Boston.
Boston Girls Empowerment Network: Boston Girls
Empowerment Network (BGEN) Girls leadership project provides high-quality
educational and recreational summer activities, ensuring that girls of
color will continue the social development progress, prevent summer
learning loss and keep them safe.
Building Alliance to Support Immigrant Mental Health (BASIMH): The grantwill
allowBASIMH to hire additional providers to conduct group and individual
sessions targeting CNAs, nurses, technicians and other health workers who
need a safe place to share their traumatic experiences as it relates to
their lines of duties during the pandemic.
Caribbean Youth Club: Caribbean Youth Club
will use the grant to engage Afro-Caribbean immigrant and refugee youth
ages 16-21 to access summer employment, build leadership skills and engage
in safe evening recreation.
Catie's Closet, Inc.: The
grant will allow Catie's Closet to continue to provide basic necessities,
including toiletries and feminine products to homeless and low-income
families through the City's youth meal sites throughout the summer.
Chinese
Progressive Association (CPA): CPA will provide consistent and
reliable staffing for food distribution sites across the City, including
YMCAs, Boston Housing Authority properties and other other high volume sites
in the community, including VietAID, and the Egleston, East Boston,
Washington Beech, and Wang.
City Mission, Inc.: City
Mission will use the grant to purchase online grocery store cards and
distribute them to 50 families experiencing homelessness.
:The
grant will provide 400 Chromebooks for youth to perform virtual work
through the Summer Jobs Program.
Habitat for Humanity Greater Boston:
Habitat for Humanity will provide grocery store gift cards for 85
low-income families, as well as provide protective items and
disinfectants.
Homes For Families (HFF): HFF
will provide care packages to help meet immediate needs of families
residing in shelter or in permanent supportive housing. In collaboration
with Boston Healthcare for the Homeless, the funding will provide
educational materials on an on-going basis with COVID-19 related
information and prevention; safety; and mental health resources.
Lifeboat Boston:
Lifeboat Boston is an outreach organization located in the Fenway
neighborhood that works to end food insecurity through a weekly fresh food
pantry. They will use the grant to rent a cargo van for four weeks to
expand home delivery services and provide assistance to homeless
clients.
LivableStreets Alliance:
The grant will fund an automated SMS/texting ChatBot tool for EMS to
perform daily wellness checks with all frontline staff during the COVID-19
pandemic.
Multicultural AIDS Coalition (MAC):MAC
provides trusted and culturally specific services to support clients often
not reached by traditional programs, including gay / bisexual men of color,
those in the recovery community, immigrants and other residents as
appropriate. Specifically, funds will be used to utilize street outreach,
provide COVID19 prevention and education materials, and provide food
vouchers and packaged meals.
My
Brother's Keeper 617: This grant will allow My Brother's Keeper 617
to continue their work in Dorchester providing gift cards for low-income
families.
Rescuing
Leftover Cuisine: The grant will allow Rescuing Leftover Cuisine
(RLC) to waive fees paid by food providers for pick-up. The grant will also
help expand RLC's tech platform and strengthen infrastructure to facilitate
coordination of one-off donations and delivery to households; provide
essential PPE, supplies to volunteers; and supplement current volunteer
corps with 10 paid staff rescuers to minimize safety risks, enhance
reliability and systemize operations.
Self Esteem Boston Educational
Institute, Inc.: The grant will be used to expand Zoom and audio
conference support services for women in substance abuse treatment and
transitional recovery programs and build the skills of first responders and
community service workers in the areas of wellness, stress management,
self-esteem and self-care, and to expand access to Self Esteem Boston's new
online learning center for vulnerable populations.
STEAM Ahead: STEAM Ahead
provides free S.T.E.A.M. (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math)
programming to youth throughout Boston. The programs serve as a vehicle to
help close the education gap for underrepresented groups of youth. Many of
the families served are in need of food assistance and staff will prepare
healthy food packages along with educational materials and deliver them
directly to their homes.
Team New England: Team New England (TNE) will assist youth and their families
by providing food, household essentials, and virtual check-ins and games to
help keep young people occupied over the summer. In addition, they will
work with youth to make care packages for seniors that will consist of
healthy snacks, hand sanitizer, masks, coloring books, puzzles, fuzzy
socks, slippers, and other essentials. As a youth community service
project, TNE will be partnering with the Grove Hall Senior Center who will
be identifying seniors. These care baskets will be delivered to the homes
of these seniors by the youth accompanied by an adult.
The DREAM Program: The DREAM
Program will provide weekly deliveries of activity materials to its
students, tailored to their specific interests and needs, to ensure that
they are able to engage online and offline. The grant will specifically
equip youth with laptops and internet access to support academic
development and combat stress and trauma.
The Wily Network: A grant from
the Boston Resiliency Fund will support the Wily Network's emergency
funding needs for their students.
Transgender
Emergency Fund of Massachusetts, Inc.: The Transgender Emergency
Fund of Massachusetts serves low-income transgender residents of Boston,
mostly transgender people of color. This funding will be used to purchase
and distribute nutritious food bags and boxes as well as hygiene supplies
to low-income transgender people living in Boston.
Trinity Boston Connects:
Trinity Boston Connects will use the grant to increase and subsidize
clinical mental health services for frontline youth workers.
True Alliance Center: True
Alliance Center will use this grant to augment existing cash assistance
work, translate documents and support for Boston's Haitian community, and
provide educational materials to educate immigrants about their rights, and
about health and prevention.
Turn It Around
(Charlestown): Many of the youth served by Turn It Around are in
need of financial stability, mental health services, academic support, and
social connection. The grant will fund engagement stipends through physical
fitness bootcamps. The funding will also provide volunteers with Personal
Protective Equipment (PPE) to deliver food and basic hygiene items to those
impacted by COVID-19. It will also provide grocery store gift cards based
on family needs.
Union of Minority
Neighborhoods: The Union of Minority Neighborhoods will use the
grant to continue to manage a trusted community helpline and work with
service agencies collaboratively for needs of callers for resource
referrals.
United
South End Settlements: The grant will support the Neighbor2Neighbor
Food Access and Delivery Program, an emergency food assistance and access
effort available to the residents of Boston with a focus on those living in
the South End and Lower Roxbury. The Neighbor2Neighbor Food Access
and Delivery Program provides nutritious and healthy dry groceries, fresh
produce, and prepackaged prepared family style dinners each week to help
fill the food gap many families are experiencing. In addition, it will
support providing families access to SNAP, WIC and other related benefits,
and provide cash assistance in the form of gift cards for local food and
other essential purposes.
Urban Guild Inc.: The Guild
will use the grant to pay for continued holistic community support, with a
portion of the funds to steward communal Guild gardens for residents to
tend and harvest vegetables, fruits, and herbs. The grant will also allow
for additional food distribution as well as children's diapers, adult
diapers, baby wipes, and feminine hygiene products.
Vietnamese American Initiative for
Development, Inc. (VietAID): VietAID will use the grant to continue
providing hot meals from a Dorchester Vietnamese restaurant to older adults
and groceries distribution to over 500 families. VietAID utilizes a network
of volunteers and staff to deliver and distribute food items that are
culturally appropriate to the families being served.
Youth on Board (YOB/BSAC): YOB/BSAC
serves the needs of 18,000 high school students by actively engaging them
to advocate for student rights, equitable schools, stronger youth-adult partnerships,
and environmental justice within and beyond their schools. YOB will use the
grant to safely engage youth during the summer months by providing stipends
for program alumni and program coordinators.
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