Danbury nonprofit gets $3M to inoculate the ‘hard-to-reach’
DANBURY — One of the city’s leading nonprofits was at work Monday on a new strategy to break down socioeconomic barriers and bring coronavirus vaccines to the city’s most vulnerable families in traditionally underserved neighborhoods.
Danbury-based Connecticut Institute for Communities, working with a new $3 million federal grant secured by U.S. Rep. Jahana Hayes, will open a new vaccine center, target “hard-to-reach communities” with newsletters and direct mail, and partner with community leaders to get around barriers caused by economics, education and cultural affiliation.
“This is peer to peer — we identify people in the
community who are supportive of the vaccine and we encourage them to talk to their peers,” said James Maloney, president and CEO of Connecticut Institute for Communities. “It’s fine that the national leadership is promoting vaccines, but what people listen to is their neighbors and their local clergy leadership, so we need to have boots on the ground for this to be effective.”
Hayes, a second-term Democrat who was a prominent Waterbury teacher before taking office, said it was important that Danbury and the state’s other urban centers combat the health care disparity in Connecticut cities and towns, which has only been exacerbated by the coronavirus crisis.
The federal money, earmarked for vaccination, testing and treatment of the city’s most vulnerable and “hard-hit populations,” can be used to hire staff, add mobile units and increase “confidence in the vaccine by empowering local, trusted health professionals in their efforts to expand vaccinations,” Hayes’ office said.
The $3 million award to CIFC is part of a larger $11 million allotment Hayes secured for three other community health centers in Waterbury, Torrington and Plainville from the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan passed in March. Statewide, Connecticut’s 16 community health centers received a total of $74 million.
“The importance of these centers is even more obvious during the pandemic,” Hayes said in a prepared statement. “I am pleased that funding from the American Rescue Plan will help community health centers in our state sustain their critical missions and keep our neighbors healthy during unprecedented times.”
While Maloney said CIFC’s specific strategy won’t be formalized until the nonprofit assembles a budget, initial plans call for moving its vaccination clinic from the community room of its Main Street headquarters in downtown Danbury to a rented medical office space, among other expansion efforts.
“It is very gratifying to have these resources to attack the problem of health disparities,” Maloney said. “The more educated people are, the more likely they are to have good health and to accept vaccines.”