Contact: Michelle Hillman
508-380-5486 (cell)
Michelle_Hillman@waysideyouth.org

Framingham, MA – Wayside Youth & Family Support Network received a grant for $29,769 from the MetroWest Health Foundation. Wayside will use the grant to create an Equity Training Center that will launch this year.

The new training center will provide educational workshops, personalized consultation services and community presentations to schools, local community groups, nonprofits and social service providers to challenge systemic racism, white privilege and increase equity within their organizations.

The goal of the center is to educate our youth and families, community partners and other nonprofits to develop anti-racist policies and practices that will challenge the strongholds of systemic racism. Trainings will be led by Wayside’s staff who are experts in diversity, equity and inclusion.

“We are beyond thankful for the grant from the MetroWest Health Foundation,” said Wayside’s President and CEO Eric Masi. “This will greatly benefit our community by educating people about diversity, inclusion, and equity. These free trainings will inform people about the daily oppression Black and brown people face and how to prevent it.”

This center intends to serve as a resource with a range of training topic available to the community and individuals including how to create systemic organizational change, talking about anti-racism with kids, examining white privilege and learning to have uncomfortable conversations about race and racism.

About Wayside Youth & Family Support Network: Founded in 1977, Wayside Youth & Family Support Network is a non-profit, nationally accredited human services agency headquartered in Framingham, Mass. dedicated to building strength, hope and resiliency through its family-based outreach services, residential treatment programs, and community-based counseling services to thousands of children, youth, and families throughout Central, Eastern and Northeastern Massachusetts. To learn more about Wayside, please visit www.waysideyouth.org or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn.

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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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