Need

Nutrition and literacy are community health essentials. BHC provides all pediatric patients with a free, age-appropriate book during each well visit. Access to books is critical for early childhood literacy and setting kids up for happy, healthy lives. In addition, for many years we’ve stocked a food pantry at one of our South Bronx clinics. With the COVID-19 pandemic came an increased need for emergency food distribution. Though the pandemic has waned, the need for our food pantry remains at an all-time high.

About the Bronx Health Collective

For nearly 40 years the Bronx Health Collective (BHC) has uplifted our community through vital community health services—primary care, mental healthcare, case management, crisis intervention, women’s healthcare, prenatal care, nutrition services, and emergency food assistance—for over 9,000 patients through 70,000 visits per year. We serve patients regardless of their ability to pay. We need support as we continue to offer a food pantry and distribute free books for pediatric patients. Help us keep these vital initiatives going!

Three years after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are pleased to once again prioritize in-person services and activities at our locations in the South Bronx, mobile medical clinics, and clinics located within homeless shelters for families. BHC’s innovative teams are developing new programs that respond to our patients’ post-pandemic needs. New activities include a produce distribution program for patients with diabetes or pre-diabetes, as well as our newly created partnership with the Mama Glow Foundation to uplift prenatal/postpartum individuals impacted by trauma. This is all while we develop a new website and maintain our ongoing special initiatives on early childhood development, asthma, diabetes, and sexual health.

These are certainly busy times for us at the BHC. Since the spring of 2022, over 130,000 migrants have been sent to New York City, and 65,000 have entered the shelter system. We are responding to the influx of migrants through our ongoing work in shelters, and through Terra Firma—a program within BHC that supports unaccompanied immigrant children and asylum-seeking families by providing wraparound medical, legal, and mental health services.