Southwest Community Health Center (SCHC), which serves Bridgeport and the surrounding area, held its annual Spring into Summer fundraising event at the Jacky Durrell Pavilion located on the beach in Fairfield on May 16.
While the event served as a networking opportunity for local businesses and nonprofits and a celebration of those who have contributed to SCHC’s mission it was also an important fundraising moment to help support the mission of their latest expansion, a new Community Health Center to be opened on the same site as the new Madison Avenue Clubhouse for the Wakeman Boys and Girls Club in Bridgeport.
“One of our key objectives with this event is to celebrate our work and drive support for our partnership with the Wakeman Boys & Girls Club to expand our reach in Bridgeport’s north end,” said Samuel Diaz III, chief strategy officer at Southwest Community Health Center. “We hope that through the generosity of our guests and sponsors, we can fund the build-out of Southwest CHC’s new clinic located within Wakeman’s Madison Avenue Community Clubhouse.”
The 9,000-square-foot clinic is anticipated to have a measurable impact on the community, both in terms of health outcomes and economics.
According to Sabrina Smeltz, the CEO of the Wakeman Boys and Girls Club of Fairfield and Bridgeport, the recent move to a new facility provides new, state-of-the-art facilities for the children and families the organization serves. It will also signal the start of a transformational collaboration between Wakeman and the Southwest Community Health Center, which provides community health services to the greater Bridgeport area.
“We are already in the building that Southwest is moving into, we are about 10 months in,” Smeltz said. She explained that while Wakeman has been running youth programs since October that a groundbreaking is planned to celebrate Southwest’s arrival.
“They’ve been able to secure their funding to build out the health center space which is a full-fledged family focused facility,” Smeltz said. “Our community, our members, our club kids and their families will now have access to health care in multiple realms, not just the physical. They’ll have primary care, dental, behavioral health and some sorts of specialty care. I call it one stop shopping.”
Smeltz stressed the value of having the facilities in the same location for busy parents. Not only does it simplify logistics, but by being able to drop kids off at the Boys and Girls Club parents will be able to have their own appointments without needing to find additional childcare.
At the Spring into Summer event, SCHC’s Board Chair Marshall Touponse thanked all who turned out not only for supporting SCHC, but the community it serves.
“Southwest plays such a vital role in the community. It really is a hidden gem. Without Southwest I can only imagine what the healthcare situation would be like in Bridgeport, what it would be like in emergency rooms, the only places some people can go for healthcare,” Touponse said. “Support of Southwest is critical.”
Three awards were presented to acknowledge the support and partnerships that enable the continued service of SCHC. They were awarded to US Representative Jim Himes for helping secure the federal funding necessary to open the new center, The Wakeman Boys and Girls Club itself, and Frank Rivas Jr. for his dedication to promoting SCHC.
