GLHA Awards $200,000 in Community Health Grants

GLHA Awards $200,000 in Community Health Grants

glha-2016-grant-recipients
The Greater Lowell Health Alliance awarded $200,000 in Community Health grants at the Alliance’s 2016 annual meeting.

The September 28 annual meeting was a celebration of the GLHA’s tenth anniversary as a nonprofit organizations dedicated to identifying and addressing the region’s most urgent unmet health needs.

The GLHA is proud to announce the grant awards for the Fall of 2016 to support programs and services to improve the overall health of the Greater Lowell community. Grants were awarded around the following priority areas:

• Mental Health and Mental Disorders
• Substance Abuse (Including Tobacco Use)
• Chronic Disease (e.g. Asthma, Obesity, Diabetes)
• Prevention & Screenings (e.g. Cancer, children’s nutrition)

The GLHA awarded eight grants totaling $200,000 to community-based organizations to address critical health issues in the Greater Lowell area. Below is the list of the 2016 Community Health Initiatives Grant Recipients:

  • Elder Services of the Merrimack Valley, Inc.:Greater Lowell Falls Talk
    Project – $40,000. To introduce evidence-based falls prevention program, FallScape, to the CHNA 10 communities and expand programs to reach more frail, homebound populations.
  • Habitat for Humanity of Greater Lowell: Neighborhood Revitalization
    Initiative: Building Healthy Places – $10,000. This grant will go towards the renovation portion of their Centralville neighborhood revitalization Initiative.
  •  Lowell Community Health Center: Youth Substance Use Prevention Project – $39,000. To expand ESWG activities to reduce risk factors and increase protective factors among youth through substance abuse prevention education and outreach programming reaching as many as 300 youth through education and community building activities.
  • Lowell House Inc.: Community Opioid Outreach Program (COOP) – $21,000. LHI, LPD, Lowell Fire Department and Lowell Health Department collaboration designed to addresses the opiate epidemic in Lowell. The main objective of the Community Opioid Outreach Program (“COOP”) is to conduct proactive outreach to recent overdose victims, as well as their families and connect them to treatment services in the region.
  • McCarthy Middle School, Chelmsford: Strengthening Health of Middle School Students– $16,000. Grant funding will go towards three programs designed to strengthen the social and emotional health of middle school students, to reduce the incidence of self-harm and substance use.
  • Merrimack Valley Food Bank: Operation Nourish– $10,000. A children’s feeding program in which MCFB partners with several Lowell Public Schools to address the nutritional needs of children who may struggle with hunger.
  • Mill City Grows: Farm to School Partnership Expansion – $25,000. To increase healthy habits of Lowell’s students to improve their health outcomes and decrease obesity and diet related illness.
  • Tewksbury Police Department: Regional Jail Diversion Program – $39,000. This program is designed to divert individuals with mental illness and substance abuse away from the criminal justice system and toward the appropriate psychiatric, social, and community-based services.