By GREGORY ZELLER //
One of the nation’s youngest – and most generous – healthcare foundations made it a Christmas to remember for New York organizations serving underserved communities, with more than 450 end-of-year grants totaling $140 million.
That includes roughly $8.8 million in grants for groups challenging health disparities across Long Island – part of a December gifting spree that raised the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation’s total 2021 outlay to $160 million.
The New York City-based foundation – which provides grants specifically to bridge healthcare gaps and improve the wellbeing of the most vulnerable New Yorkers – had already issued $20 million in 2021 funding for what it called “authorized emergency COVID-19 programs.”
Throw the 460-or-so end-of-year-grants on the pile, and Mother Cabrini has now awarded grants totaling nearly $470 million since it launched in 2020 with a tidy $5 million round of strategic grants.
All told, the private nonprofit supported 507 statewide programs in 2021 alone, all working to “improve health and human services during a time of unprecedented need,” according to Mother Cabrini. Among them: 21 Long Island-based organizations included in the end-of-year gifting, sharing 28 total grants.
Kathryn Ruscitto: Have faith.
Rockville Centre-based Catholic Health (formerly Catholic Health Services of Long Island) scored eight separate December grants totaling $4.2 million, including $1.1 million for “mother-baby modernization” at West Islip’s Good Samaritan Hospital and $1 million each for renovations at Port Jefferson’s Good Shepherd Hospice and Rockville Centre’s Mercy Hospital.
Top Long Island grants ($750,000 each) also went to the Uniondale-based Tomorrow’s Hope Foundation’s scholarship fund and a “multidisciplinary primary care collaboration” at Rockville Centre’s Molloy College. Gifts in the $100,000-$300,000 range were also bestowed upon Garden City’s Adelphi University, the Stony Brook Foundation, Hauppauge-based Island Harvest food bank and several other regional groups.
Kathryn Ruscitto, chairwoman of the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation’s Regional Grants Committee, said the Long Island organizations were among the “essential, innovative and hardworking groups working on behalf of the health of New Yorkers.”
“These include an array of religiously affiliated organizations that support critical programs through a well-established infrastructure serving the needs of the poor and underserved of all faiths,” Ruscitto added.
Other Mother Cabrini officials noted COVID-19’s heavy hand in the determination of the foundation’s 2021 outlay.
Gregory Mustaciuolo: Healthy outlook.
“As we look back at the compounding crises of the last few years, the health-related needs of vulnerable communities have only grown,” noted Visa Inc. Chairman and CEO Alfred Kelly Jr., who chairs the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation Board. “Our grantees have demonstrated tremendous resilience, creativity and dedication to serving those in need, especially as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to have such (a) detrimental impact.”
The sentiment was supported by Mother Cabrini Health Foundation Chief Executive Msgr. Gregory Mustaciuolo, who referenced “two years of recovery from a pandemic that has hit vulnerable populations the hardest.”
“We must continue to address the challenges communities across New York State are facing,” Mustaciuolo said in a statement, noting “food and housing insecurity, lack of access to basic healthcare including vaccines, lack of equity within the healthcare professions and racial and economic healthcare disparities” were all “made worse during COVID-19.”
“We must continue to support the full range of services that make for healthy people and communities,” the monsignor added.
