The Dana Home Foundation Announces Grant Recipients at Gala Award Ceremony on May 29, 2013

Jim Wong

The Dana Home Foundation, previously known as the Dana Home of Lexington, distributed close to a quarter of a million dollars in grant money to fund projects that benefit senior residents of Lexington. The recipients of these grants were honored at the Dana Home Foundation’s first annual award ceremony at the Depot Building, in Lexington Center. These inaugural awards were dedicated to Showkat Rafi in honor of her service for a quarter century as the Executive Director of the Dana Home and in memory of Jim Wong, a much loved member of the Dana Home Board and Vice-President, in thanks for his years of service.

Showkat Rafi

Board members Susan McClements and Kevin McGuire formally presented the awards and asked a representative from each grant recipient’s organization to describe how these funds would be used to benefit seniors living in Lexington. The grant beneficiaries included three local assisted living facilities, local charitable organizations that provide programs for seniors whose area of service includes Lexington, and Town departments providing senior services. The grants ranged from $5,000 to $50,000.

Through the award of these grants and in partnerships with local organizations, The Dana Home Foundation is honored to continue to fulfill its mission to provide for the comfort, care, and wellbeing of senior residents in the Lexington community.

The Dana Home Foundation awarded grants ranging from $5,000 to $50,000 to the following organizations.

• Minuteman Senior Services –To support its Healthy Connections program in Lexington which provides support to seniors in Lexington and surrounding communities including senior nutrition programs (Senior Dining Program at the Lexington Senior Center and Meals on Wheels) health benefits counseling through SHINE, and Healthy Aging programs

• Visiting Nurse and Community Health, Inc. – To help pay for equipment to improve electronic medical record keeping, in support of its ongoing mission to provide home-based services, including hospice, predominantly to seniors in Lexington and surrounding communities

• Town of Lexington, Health and Human Services Department  –  To help fund its Senior Outreach Services Program serving Lexington residents over 60 in the areas of community awareness, safety education, telephone reassurance, and reduced or no cost transportation

• Youville Place  – To help fund the creation of a memory support community in Lexington for the support of residents with Alzheimers or moderate to advanced dementia;

• Perkins School for the Blind - To support funding of the Lexington portion of the “Thriving with Vision Loss Project,” an outreach program of the Perkins Braille & Talking Book Library

• Leland Home –  To fund a scholarship program for Lexington Residents at the Leland Home, a home for the elderly located in Waltham, in recognition of a program that serves the Dana Home’s original mission, to provide an affordable environment for seniors in a homelike setting, and in honor of the former Dana Home residents who found a home there when the Dana Home closed in 2010

• Lexington Fire Department  – To fund the Lexington Fire Department Smoke Alarm and Carbon Monoxide Install Program for Older Adults in Lexington

• Hancock United Church of Christ – To fund the purchasing of video and hearing-assist equipment, improvements primarily designed for outreach to disabled seniors

• Lexington Historical Society – To help fund improvements to the Buckman Tavern, a town owned historical property, to provide greater accessibility to this historic structure for both its senior docents and its visitors, many of whom are seniors

• Cooperative Elder Services – To subsidize the cost of transportation for low-to-moderate income seniors from the Lexington area to its Adult Day Health and Memory Care program

• Friends of the Council on Aging – To fund the “Lifelong Learning Institute,” a pilot program to provide Lexington Seniors with a community-wide, affordable, daytime learning program, offering courses in collaboration with Lexington Community Education, the Lexington Human Services Department, the Council on Aging, and other Town and community organizations

• Brookhaven at Lexington – To help fund the publication of a book of World War II and Korean War reminiscences from Residents of Brookhaven at Lexington