HOLYOKE — As COVID-19 cases remain concerningly high in Holyoke, a community organization has received a grant to create a public information campaign in an effort to stem the spread of the coronavirus disease.
OneHolyoke Community Development Corp. received the $30,000 grant as part of $650,000 in funds that the state has awarded to community-based and faith organizations to limit the spread of the virus in communities of color, which have been among the hardest hit by COVID-19.
Holyoke, where most residents identify as Hispanic, continues to fall into the state’s high-risk category for the virus. In weekly municipal data released Thursday, Holyoke had an average daily incidence rate of 72.8 cases per 100,000 residents, with 6.93% of residents who were tested for the virus receiving a positive result.
The COVID-19 Community Grant awarded to OneHolyoke CDC will fund a messaging campaign concentrated in predominantly Hispanic neighborhoods of the city, the organization said, noting that data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show Latinos are hospitalized with COVID-19 at four times the rate of white Americans.
“We’re replicating a lot of what we did for community outreach with the census,” Michael Moriarty, the organization’s executive director, said Sunday. “We have developed some strategies that seem to communicate well, and we have a strong ability to produce documentation in English and Spanish in a timely fashion. We just have good connections with the people where folks meet right now.”
Juan Flores, a Holyoke resident, will be working exclusively on the project. In addition to messaging best public health practices on social media, the organization will be passing out printed materials on the city blocks with the highest levels of coronavirus spread and sharing best practices with community providers. Among the topics to be covered in the campaign are mask wearing, social distancing, hygiene and other harm-reduction steps residents can take. The campaign will be in both English and Spanish.
Moriarty said that the current project does not include messaging about the COVID-19 vaccine, but that OneHolyoke expects to do that work in the near future.
“We expect that and plan to pivot very quickly,” he said.
OneHolyoke CDC is the city’s only certified community development corporation, largely focused on housing issues.
Dusty Christensen can be reached at dchristensen@gazettenet.com.