Massachusetts General Hospital’s Center for Community Health Improvement (CCHI) and Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital recently announced the distribution of $118,628 in grant funding through Building a Healthier Charlestown to two Charlestown collaboratives.
The grants follow a community health assessment and community health improvement planning process conducted in 2012 by the CCHI and Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in partnership with the residents of Charlestown. The improvement plan highlighted four areas– education; substance abuse/mental health; access to care/autism and cancer prevention and access to treatment—as priority issues in Charlestown.
The overall purpose of Building a Healthier Charlestown is to improve the health of the Charlestown community by building the capacity of, and fostering collaboration between, community-based organizations to use evidence-based approaches to address the priorities identified in the health improvement plan. MGH and Spaulding are investing financial and technical resources to aid in this effort.
To accomplish this goal, Building a Healthier Charlestown will fund five-year grants for two partnerships located in or providing the majority of their services to Charlestown residents.
The John F. Kennedy Family Service Center received $53,980 to support the Healthier Living Through Good Food and Exercise in collaboration with Kids Cooking Green, the Charlestown YMCA, Cancer Prevention Awareness and Education and Whole Foods Market to promote healthy diet and physical activity.
The Boston Housing Authority (BHA) received $64,648 to support a collaboration between BHA Charlestown Adult Education Program (CAEP), Mishawum & CharlesNewtown Housing, Smart from the Start and the Charlestown Substance Abuse Coalition. The partnership will help to develop a culture of life-long learning in Charlestown by providing high quality high school equivalency preparation and ESOL classes and facilitating high level college and career readiness skills. In addition, the program will reach out to Charlestown residents with education and information on ways to reduce violence and the misuse of drugs and alcohol.