The City of Philadelphia announced that it has awarded $3.1 million to 43 nonprofit organizations through the Overdose Prevention and Community Healing Fund during an awards ceremony held on Wednesday.
The Overdose Prevention and Community Healing Fund uses national opioid settlement dollars to repair the harms inflicted on local communities as a result of the opioid epidemic. The Fund draws on community participation to direct resources to organizations doing work in three areas: overdose prevention, community and family healing, and/or substance use prevention.
The fund was launched in December 2022; the first round of grants ($1.9 million) was awarded in June 2023. The grant selection process involves three Community Granting Groups made of Philadelphia residents who reviewed and selected applications from eligible organizations serving impacted areas in Kensington, North Philadelphia, among other neighborhoods throughout Philadelphia.
“The funds from the national opioid settlement cases coming to Philadelphia must be put to work in the most strategic way since every single penny should be used to address the effects of thousands of lives that have been lost or damaged because innocent people became addicted to opioids handed out in such a reckless way,” said Mayor Cherelle Parker. “The grants distributed today through the second round of the Overdose Prevention Fund and Community Healing Fund do exactly that at a very grassroots level and we’re excited to learn how their work is impacting our communities.”
A total of 14 Organizational Support Grants ($20,000) and 29 Program Grants ($100,000) were awarded to local nonprofits that engage communities through programs focused on overdose prevention, community and family healing, and substance use prevention.
Organizational Support Grants support organizations that are working to advance overdose prevention, community and family healing, and substance use prevention. Funding can be used to support a wide range of operating and program costs.
Grant recipients include Angels in Motion, Klean Kensington, Operation Save Our City , St. Mark’s Church in Frankford, Socks for the Streets, Northwest Community Court Program, Team, Inc. and UR the Key; as well as citywide organizations The Everywhere Project, Mad Beatz Philly, Show Me the Way Foundation, Connectedly, Philadelphia Community Land Trust, and Women in Dialogue.
Program Grants, which support specific programs and projects that directly advance overdose prevention, community and family healing, and substance use prevention, can use the funding to support staff time and specific program-related costs.
Grant recipients include Safe-Hub Philadelphia, North Philly Project, Faith, Health and Healing, Courage Medicine Health Center Inc., Fab Youth Philly, Hope, Inc, Mother Mercy House, Philly Bridge & Jawn, and The Lighthouse, among others.
“This timely funding partnership with the Prevention Fund will allow the North Philly Project to support the continuation of our harm reduction work with those that have fallen through the gaps of recovery, wellness, and community healing,” said Aaron Wells, Executive Director of the North Philly Project, a program grantee receiving $100,000 this round. “The funding will provide resources that will help to add peer support, healing arts, information blitz, and desperately needed trauma-informed grief counseling and therapeutic supports for families that have lost loved ones due to overdose and substance use.”
