Dear Friend,

     I wanted to share some good news with you! Over the past year, I’ve been working hard in Washington to bring federal funding home to Connecticut, and I’m thrilled that our district has received a raft of grants to fund locally led projects. Read on to learn about a few of the ways these grants will be used to better our community.

Scientific Research: Bee Health and Ecology Research Objective (Bee-HERO)

     As a beekeeper, I was particularly excited to learn that the National Science Foundation awarded Sacred Heart University in Fairfield $400,000 to fund its Bee-HERO initiative. The project will provide undergraduate students from historically marginalized groups with an international research experience focused on bee-related viruses and parasites. Given 35% of crops in our food supply rely on pollinator activity, expanding the pipeline of scientists trained to study these critical insects and deepening our knowledge of their biological threats are two worthwhile goals Bee-HERO aims to accomplish during its multi-year program.

Jim tending to the Himes Hive.

Traffic Safety: Safer Streets and Roads for All

     Car accidents on our highways, thoroughfares, and even some backroads, are an all too familiar occurrence in our state. Improving road safety is paramount to reducing the prevalence of collisions and traffic-related deaths. Thanks to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Connecticut Metropolitan Council of Governments will receive $1 million to analyze the 15 highest crash locations and corridors on Connecticut Department of Transportation owned roads throughout the Greater Bridgeport region. The analysis will then allow our local leaders to place the most effective safety countermeasures at these locations to decrease accidents and save lives. In all, this will be the eighth federal traffic safety grant my office has helped bring home to improve our district’s roads in the last two fiscal years.

Health Care: Family Centers’ School Based Health Centers

     In 2023, I secured $1 million for Family Centers Inc., a nonprofit that offers education, health, and human services to children, adults and families in Fairfield County, to grow their School Based Health Centers. These medical clinics—located in eight middle and high schools throughout Greenwich and Stamford—are open to all enrolled students, regardless of income or health care coverage. By providing routine medical care, free of charge and easily accessible to young patients, Family Centers helps boost children’s health and empowers students to seek treatment without concern for cost. This new federal funding will help expand its locations at Stamford High School and Turn-of-River Middle School, the latter of which will now offer primary care services.

School Based Health Centers offer free medical services to all students who attend the schools where they are located.

Housing: Lead-Based Paint Remediation

     The Center for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 29 million housing units in the United States contain lead hazards, of which some 2.6 million are home to young children. Here in Connecticut, where many of our homes were constructed before lead-paint’s risks were fully understood, 1,000 children a year suffer exposure-related health consequences. I’m thrilled Bridgeport will receive over $6 million from the Department of Housing and Urban Development to protect families by remediating lead-hazards in older homes. When paired with Governor Lamont’s Lead Free CT campaign, this federal investment furthers our state’s efforts to eliminate lead contaminants once and for all.

Youth Programming: Drug Free Communities

     The Norwalk Partnership and Greenwich Together coalitions engage a wide range of stakeholders in the community who are committed to helping our youth make healthy decisions and reducing substance misuse. It was a pleasure to join Margaret Watt, Executive Director of Positive Directions which oversees The Norwalk Partnership’s grant, and Shari Shapiro, Executive Director of Kids in Crisis which coordinates the Greenwich Coalition’s grant, to discuss how their 5-year, $625,000 federal grants will allow their organizations to reach even more young people in lower Fairfield County. These coalitions are among the four, including Fairfield Cares and Trumbull’s Prevention Partnership, that have received federal Drug Free Communities funding in our district.

Drug Free Communities Grants support youth substance misuse intervention programs.

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