Beth Israel Lahey Health Awards More Than $400,000 in Grant Funding to Brockton Community Organizations
Funds Supporting Collaborative Efforts With Community-based Organizations Focused on Food Insecurity and Housing Stability in Brockton
Brockton, MA – Beth Israel Lahey Health (BILH) today announced it has awarded $410,000 in grant funding to three community-based organizations to support collaborative efforts to address food insecurity and housing stability in the City of Brockton. Building on BILH’s longstanding commitment to the community, the grant funding seeks to address key areas of need identified collaboratively by the City of Brockton, community-based organizations and BILH’s Community Benefits Committee.
“We are deeply dedicated to serving the health needs of our communities, and are proud to build upon our long-standing commitment to the Brockton community, which began formally eight years ago through our clinical affiliation with Signature Healthcare,” said Kevin Tabb, MD, President and CEO of Beth Israel Lahey Health. “We are pleased to provide grant funding to support collaborative efforts with City of Brockton community-based programs to help address urgent needs intensified by the COVID-19 pandemic. Our hope is that these funds will help expand access to nutritious food and housing stability, which are critical social determinants of health.”
BILH grant funding will support the following:
Charity Guild ($90,000): For fifty years, The Charity Guild’s mission has been to provide basic and necessary services to those unable to meet their primary needs of food, clothing and household goods. BILH has awarded The Charity Guild funding to lead a multi-agency Brockton Area Hunger Network program focused on food insecurity. The BILH grant funding will support all participating agencies’ efforts to implement and utilize a cooperative client program across multiple food program partners of the Brockton Area Hunger Network (BAHN). By collectively registering clients for their food programs, the BAHN partners will be able to increase collaboration around food resources for residents, better identify the food needs in their community, and work together to better serve those in Brockton who are food insecure. Since the start of the pandemic, The Charity Guild Food Pantry has experienced a 110% increase in new households needing food and the numbers continue to rise.
Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro South ($115,000): The mission of Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro South (BGCMS) is to nurture strong minds, healthy bodies, and community spirit through youth-driven, high-impact programs in safe, fun environments. This grant will allow Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro South’s Brockton Clubhouse to purchase a state-of-the-art Freight Farm Greenery, which is a self-contained hydroponic farm housed in a shipping container which allows for plants to grow vertically indoors year-round without soil or direct sunlight. The BGCMS Brockton Community Freight Farm will produce fresh produce that will be made available to Club members, Brockton residents, and Brockton Area Hunger Network (BAHN) agencies working to combat food insecurity.
Father Bill's & MainSpring (FBMS) ($205,000): For more than three decades, FBMS has been a leading innovator of ending and preventing homelessness in Southern Massachusetts with programs that provide emergency and permanent housing and help people obtain skills, jobs, housing, and services and achieve self-sufficiency. The grant will support FBMS’s efforts to purchase and convert the former Rodeway Inn into 69 permanent studio apartments for formerly homeless individuals in Brockton. Providing permanent housing with support services to people who've been homeless will have a long-term impact on the medical, mental and financial health of Brockton residents. A portion of the grant will be allocated to create an emergency eviction prevention fund managed by FBMS, to be accessible for Brockton residents and their families bridging challenging housing situations.
“Today is a great day for the City of Brockton,” said Mayor Robert F. Sullivan. “I am incredibly grateful to BILH for their continued investment in the health and safety of Brockton’s most vulnerable communities. These funds will allow for three amazing charitable agencies, in collaboration with the community and other organizations, to ensure equitable access to two things of which no individual should have to live without; healthy food and a place to call home.”
About Beth Israel Lahey Health
Beth Israel Lahey Health is a health care system that brings together academic medical centers and teaching hospitals, community and specialty hospitals, more than 4,700 physicians and 39,000 employees in a shared mission to expand access to great care and advance the science and practice of medicine through groundbreaking research and education.
