NORTHAMPTON — Three staff members for the Hilltown Community Health Center are being honored by their peers for their work in the healthcare field.
The health group presented the first Florence Bates Excellence Awards at a celebration at the Florence Civic Center Friday, nearly coinciding with the 76th anniversary of the Oct. 3, 1950, founding of what at the time was called the Worthington Health Association.
Dr. Jessica Bossie, a family physician who practices at the John P. Musante Health Center in Amherst, earned the Florence Bates Award for Clinical Excellence; Carolina Kenney, community outreach worker, also at the Amherst location, earned the Florence Bates Award for Clinical Support; and Cynthia Magrath, who is the dental operational manager across all sites, earned the Florence Bates Spirit Award.
Hilltown Community Health Center locations also include the Huntington Health Center and the Worthington Health Center.
Nancy Gilbert, a member of the board, emceed the event, which brought out about 80 guests, including staff and board members.
“As a board, we are so very proud of these awardees and all the HCHC employees,” Gilbert said. “Common threads in all nominations are caring for patients and staff, going above and
beyond assigned duties.”
Gilbert summed up the three awardees’ strengths.
“What makes Dr. Bossie exceptional is not only the amount of time she gives but the
way she makes people feel,” she said. “She helps people who may have spent years feeling invisible feel seen, heard, respected and cared about.”
Kenney, the board noted, goes above and beyond to coordinate patient care.
“Without her, many of our patients would surely not access the medical care and social programs that they so very much need,” Gilbert said.
Magrath is considered the cornerstone of the dental practice across all sites.
“Her keen knowledge of every aspect of the dental department, her intelligence, empathy, straightforwardness, people skills and true care for patients make our practice flow, to
such an extent, that she makes it appear easy,” Gilbert said.
Last year, during the center’s 75th anniversary, the individuals and families who have helped fund Hilltown received honors, with peer-nominated awards recognizing staff members beginning in 2026.
Florence Bates, of Worthington, had been a Red Cross nurse when the last town doctor, Dr. Mary Snook, left in 1948. Bates identified the need for a permanent health center, and at Town Meeting in February 1950, she brought forward a proposal for the Health Center and incorporated it as Worthington Health Association.
But a quarter century later, in 1975, concern about the center’s viability led to a benefit concert in Worthington, headlined by folk singer Arlo Guthrie, who lives in the Berkshire County town of Washington. That concert attracted 10,000 spectators — causing traffic jams in the small town — and raised $30,000, sufficient funds for the site to become a Federally Qualified Health Center.
