Mount Auburn Hospital to enhance bereavement support with $100,000 grant from The New York Life Foundation
New York Life Foundation Grants $100,000 in Support of Award-Winning Program
Cambridge, MA – Mount Auburn Hospital (MAH), part of Beth Israel Lahey Health, announced today that it has received a $100,000 Grief Reach grant from the New York Life Foundation. The grant will support the Mount Auburn Hospital/CareGroup Parmenter’s Home Care and Hospice HEARTplay™ program, an award-winning, free children’s bereavement program that uses the creative arts to help children and teens cope with the illness or death of a loved one. With this additional funding, HEARTplay will offer expanded bereavement support for children, teens and young adults with disabilities. It will also allow staff to design curriculum and provide education, training, and support to children’s bereavement professionals and programs nationwide.
“We are grateful for the New York Life Foundation’s investment in this program, which will help us build our capacity in order to fulfill our mission to improve the health and wellbeing of the residents of Cambridge and its surrounding towns,” said Jeanette Clough, President of Mount Auburn Hospital. “This collaboration enables our organization to grow and to continue supporting the needs of grieving children and their families in the communities we serve.”
“The Grief Reach grant program was initially created to increase access to bereavement services for underserved communities,” said Maria Collins, vice president of the New York Life Foundation. “Since that time, the feedback we received informed our decision to modify the grant program to address the need for organizations to expand their services to resolve gaps in the services they provide. Amending the program will help bereavement organizations to focus on the unmet needs within the audiences they serve through our philanthropic investment and partnership.”
Jennifer Wiles, Director of Children's Services, CareGroup Parmenter Home Care & Hospice, Inc., added, “This generous grant will allow us to increase our individual and family bereavement support for individuals with disabilities and their families in our HEARTplay program. We will be able to expand our staff, offer community education and outreach and collaborate with local partners to provide access to our services for bereaved people of all abilities. We are proud and inspired to represent Mount Auburn Hospital and the New York Life Foundation and their shared tradition of service, humanity, and compassion. “
The New York Life Foundation has awarded nearly 300 Grief Reach grants totaling more than $8 million have been awarded since the program’s inception in 2011. The Foundation has been one of the leading funders of the childhood bereavement field, investing nearly $40 million to date in support of grieving children and their families.
About Mount Auburn Hospital
Mount Auburn Hospital was founded in 1886. A teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School, its mission is to provide clinically excellent care with compassion and to teach students of medicine and the health professions.
Mount Auburn Hospital is a part of Beth Israel Lahey Health, a healthcare system that brings together academic medical centers and teaching hospitals, community and specialty hospitals, more than 4,700 physicians and 39,000 employees in a shared mission to expand access to great care and advance the science and practice of medicine through groundbreaking research and education.
