The Massachusetts Community Health and Healthy Aging (MACHHA) grant was my very first collaboration with Magalis Troncoso Lama, the Executive Director of the Dominican Development Center in Jamaica Plain. A graduate student who was leaving Boston, Genesis Barco Medina, introduced us, and I am still grateful for that connection. Since I had never applied for a community-based grant before, this application was a bit of “trial by fire”! But I was fortunate to find such a generous collaborator in Magalis.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, after months of distressing losses in Latinx communities around Boston, Magalis was particularly concerned to support elders in the community, who were experiencing especially high levels of social isolation and depression. Many front-line healthcare workers in neighborhoods around Boston were experiencing much higher mortality rates, and the impact on all generations of these families was severe. This grant offered a much needed opportunity to provide a space of social connection and care.
Here is what MACHHA was looking for: