FRAMINGHAM – The MetroWest Health Foundation announced the award of over $720,000 in new grants to area organizations. The bulk of the funds will address immediate needs in response to COVID 19 by providing capacity building support to local public health departments, support to area councils on aging to address the social isolation of older adults, and funding to address the emotional resiliency of residents coping with the anxiety, stress and loss associated with the pandemic.

In addition to COVID-related funding, the foundation provided support to local organizations seeking to address health inequities in the region. This includes a grant to Wayside Youth & Family Support Network to be used to develop a regional resource center focused on health equity. The new center will develop tools, training modules and expert speakers that can be used by other organizations as they seek to address diversity, equity, and inclusion in their workforce, governance, and programming.

Organizations receiving grants under the foundation’s fall grant cycle are:

COVID 19 Grants to Enhance Public Health Capacity –

• Framingham Health Department $30,000
• Hopkinton Health Department $19,800
• Hudson Health Department $20,000
• Natick Health Department $30,000
• Needham Public Health Division $20,000
• Sudbury Board of Health $20,000

COVID 19 Grants to Address the Social Isolation of Older Adults –

• Ashland Council on Aging $24,000
• Friends of the Callahan Senior Center $25,000
• Holliston Council on Aging $16,650
• Massachusetts Assoc. for the Blind $21,347
• Needham Community Council $25,000
• Northborough Council on Aging $ 9,268
• Sherborn Council on Aging $16,000
• Thrive, Support & Advocacy $17,160

COVID 19 Emotional Resiliency Grants –

• Advocates, Inc. $29,962
• Boys & Girls Clubs of MetroWest $30,000
• Hudson Health Department $30,000
• New Hope, Inc. $30,000
• SMOC $25,782
• Spark Kindness $24,574
• Westborough Youth & Family Services $19,000

Health Equity Grants –

• Health Care for All $30,000
• Learning Center for the Deaf $30,000
• Natick Health Department $30,000
• Wayside Youth & Family Support Net. $29,769

Other Support –

• A Place to Turn $20,000
• Natick Service Council $20,000
• Town of Natick Rail Trail $75,000

The MetroWest Health Foundation is a catalyst for a healthy MetroWest, providing more than $5 million in annual financial support for preventative and responsive health programs. Through its work on issues such as adolescent health, healthy aging and health equity, the foundation seeks to develop and support programs that have a positive impact on the health of the 25 communities in the MetroWest area of Massachusetts. For more information about the foundation, visit www.mwhealth.org.

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Staff Recommendations: 

Taiany Goulart, site manager, Wayside Medford

How to Be an Antiracist by Dr. Ibram X Kendi

So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo

Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire

Carlton, Wayside DEI consultant 

An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn

Jodie Nierintz, senior program director, Wayside Milford

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Fredrick Mann, Wayside clinician 

Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love, and So Much More by Janet Mock. “Mock’s Story of growing up in California and Hawaii as a low-income trans girl of color.”

Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay. “Roxane Gay has written with intimacy and sensitivity about food and bodies, using her own emotional and psychological struggles as a means of exploring our shared anxieties over pleasure, consumption, appearance, and health.”

Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell. “This book looks at the ways we do harm by failing to understand one another, a problem Gladwell investigates through the child-abuse scandal involving Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, the trial of Amanda Knox, the suicide of Sylvia Plath, the deceptions of financier Bernie Madoff and the TV, and more.”

Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People by Mahzarin R. Banaji and Anthony G. Greenwald. “This book explores hidden biases that we all carry from a lifetime of experiences with blind spot cover social groups – age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, social class, sexuality, disability status, or nationality.”

Other recommendations: 

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison 

How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez 

Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in The Cafeteria by Beverly Tatum 

On the Other Side of Freedom: The Case For Hope by DeRay Mckesson 

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