The Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation announced $250,000 in grant funding to support nonprofit organizations including Centro Present of East Boston that helps connect new immigrants to resources and services for their health care needs in communities across the Commonwealth.
Each of the 10 organizations receiving funding from the Foundation’s Special Initiatives grant program has extensive experience assisting with the health care needs of immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers and migrants. Their work has taken on a new level of urgency with the recent influx of individuals and families arriving in Massachusetts.
“Community-based organizations across Massachusetts have stepped up to meet the needs of families entering the United States with limited means, by connecting them with health care and other needed services,” said Audrey Shelto, President and CEO of the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation. “As we did when the COVID pandemic first hit, we are investing in the organizations on the front lines that are filling critical gaps and providing the life-sustaining services that these new members of our community urgently need.”
The Foundation regularly awards Special Initiatives grants, in addition to its major grantmaking programs, to support nonprofits that seek to positively impact health or health care access for Massachusetts residents who have been economically, socially, culturally or racially marginalized.
Centro Presente, a statewide Latin American immigrant organization based in East Boston, is dedicated to the self-determination and self-sufficiency of the Latino immigrant community of Massachusetts will receive $25,000 in one-year funding.