Western NY Archives - New York Health Foundation

University at Buffalo (Fiscal sponsor: Research Foundation for the State University of New York)

Childhood vaccination is a great public health achievement, drastically reducing or eliminating diseases like polio and measles.

Routine childhood vaccinations prevent outbreaks of communicable diseases, reduce avoidable emergency room and hospital utilization, and save millions of lives and billions of dollars annually. New York State passed a public health law in 1966, which established immunization requirements for children attending childcare programs as well as public, private, and parochial schools. It also empowered local county health departments to promote public awareness and ensure greater access and compliance with vaccination requirements. Despite these guidelines, thousands of young New Yorkers remain unvaccinated. Inadequate vaccination rates can lead to a resurgence of preventable diseases. In New York, 17 cases of measles have emerged in 2025 as of September 4th. In 2025, NYHealth awarded the University at Buffalo (UB) a grant to expand a mobile vaccine program in Erie County and other parts of rural Western New York to increase childhood immunization rates, school readiness, and community knowledge about the safety and efficacy of vaccines.

Under this grant, UB will extend its mobile vaccination program by partnering with the New York State Department of Health to reach high-need areas in Erie County and other rural communities. The program will conduct grassroots outreach through community partners to raise awareness, dispel misinformation, and build trust in local communities. UB will host weekly vaccination events at accessible sites, administer vaccines to an estimated 1,500 children, and connect families with primary care providers for follow-up. The UB research team will evaluate the program using State immunization data, and share findings and tools to support replication in other high-need areas while exploring billing agreements with managed care plans to sustain the program.

Nonprofit Support Group (fiscal sponsor: Grantmakers Forum of New York, dba New York Funders Alliance Initiatives Fund)

Federal executive orders and budget cuts are prompting policy changes, confusion, and uncertainty in New York’s health and social service nonprofit landscape.

New York’s more than 3,400 health nonprofits—including NYHealth grantees—are feeling the direct and indirect impacts of these changes in the form of budget cuts, communications requirements, rollbacks in protections for the communities they serve, and the contraction of the federal government’s role in public health. These shifts change how organizations operate, forcing them to navigate an uncertain policy and funding environment and a weakened safety net infrastructure. More than ever, nonprofits struggle to assess risk, forecast financial plans, communicate, adhere to their missions, and support staff and communities to navigate fear and uncertainty. They have been compelled to divert limited resources from serving clients to adopting contingency plans, implementing new compliance and safety measures, and intensifying advocacy efforts to protect their organizations, staff, and communities from discrimination and barriers to care. In 2025, NYHealth awarded the Nonprofit Support Group a grant to deliver free, timely technical assistance and capacity-building support to NYHealth grantees to strengthen their ability to respond and adapt to new, evolving, and unforeseen circumstances.

Under this grant, NSG’s IMPACT HQ program will offer resources to Western, Central New York, and Finger Lakes grantees, focusing on leadership development, fundraising, and advocacy. Grantees will have ongoing access to virtual trainings, resource directories and tools, and periodic in-person convenings where organizations can learn from each other and build relationships.

NYHealth also awarded complementary grants to the New York City Capacity Building Collaborative and Nonprofit Finance Fund.

Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center

Maternal death and serious complications, particularly among Black women and birthing people, are among the most persistent racial health disparities.

While pregnancy and childbirth can be a time of joy, too many women and birthing people of color lack access to empowering, whole-person care that promotes safe and healthy pregnancies. Nearly three out of four pregnancy-related deaths are preventable. Primary care offers a critical opportunity to address maternal health disparities and coordinate care before, during, and after pregnancy, but primary care is currently underutilized. In 2025, NYHealth issued an inaugural Request for Proposals (RFP), “Primary Care: Advancing Maternal Health Equity Through Primary and Preventive Care,” to support projects that identify racial disparities in maternal health care and outcomes, use primary and preventive care to reduce those disparities, and measure progress to improve racial health equity. NYHealth awarded the Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center (Niagara Falls Memorial) a grant to participate in this initiative.

Under this grant, Niagara Falls Memorial will create an Uplifting Birth Equity Hub to advance the delivery of primary care services to pregnant and postpartum Black women and other women of color. The Hub will bring together Niagara’s P3 Center, OB-GYN Department, and four primary care sites, alongside the Healthy Moms Healthy Babies coalition and community partners, to expand coordinated care and launch a campaign to connect more than 200 Black women and women of color to primary care. The Hub will provide direct support, enrollment assistance, and, when appropriate, accompaniment to primary care appointments through a doula. To strengthen care coordination, Niagara Falls Memorial will also create information-sharing protocols and conduct joint quality assurance between the Primary Care and OB-GYN departments.

See full list of grantees working towards advancing maternal health equity through primary and preventive care.

Field and Fork Network, Inc.

Produce prescription programs are Food Is Medicine (FIM) interventions that connect food-insecure individuals who have chronic diseases to fresh produce. Under these programs, a medical professional writes a prescription for specific foods tailored to a patient’s health needs. In conjunction with nutrition counseling and education, patients can then use these prescriptions at food retail sites and farmers markets to obtain fresh fruits and vegetables for free. In 2024, NYHealth awarded Field and Fork Network, Inc. (FFN) a grant to launch a produce prescription program that will improve food security, increase participants’ fruit and vegetable consumption, and improve health outcomes.

Under this grant, FFN will develop and launch a produce prescription pilot in Niagara Falls, NY. In partnership with Catholic Health’s Mount St. Mary’s Neighborhood Health Center (Catholic Health), it will enroll 150 food-insecure patients who have Type 2 diabetes or hypertension . FFN will identify implementation and evaluation models based on a needs assessment it conducted with the New York State Department of Health and with support from the U.S. Department of Agriculture produce prescription community of practice. FFN will collaborate with local stakeholders to design and implement the program, providing Catholic Health with both electronic and paper-based produce coupons to fulfill produce prescriptions. Local retailers will supply fresh produce, while the Create a Healthier Niagara Falls Collaborative will deliver nutrition education workshops and conduct community outreach. FFN and Catholic Health will assess the program’s impact through data analysis and participant evaluations and, based on findings, consider scaling the model to other regions.

Good Food Buffalo Coalition (fiscal sponsor: Massachusetts Avenue Project)

Food systems planning is a collaborative process among farmers, retailers, consumers, nonprofits, health systems, and government to develop priorities and implement policies that shape how local or regional food systems operate.

Benefits of food planning include improving food procurement at public institutions, supporting local retail food businesses, and strengthening outreach and enrollment in benefits programs. NYHealth is supporting eight food planning groups in New York State that are developing tailored food system plans. Buffalo’s food planning group, the Good Food Buffalo Coalition, has chosen the adoption of the Good Food Purchasing Program (GFFP) as its priority. GFPP guides public institutions to make purchases that align with values including increased nutritional quality. GFPP also creates opportunities for small farms and suppliers who traditionally have had less capacity to compete for institutional contracts. In 2022, NYHealth awarded the Good Food Buffalo Coalition a grant to assess the readiness of local farmers for GFPP, publish a resource directory for farmers of color, and work with community members to develop a GFPP racial justice action plan. The Coalition also partnered with Buffalo Public Schools to complete a GFPP baseline assessment to understand how schools performed. With the support of the Good Food Buffalo Coalition, Buffalo Public Schools is now poised to implement GFPP. In 2024, NYHealth awarded the Good Food Buffalo Coalition a grant to implement a local food system plan to harness the collective purchasing power of schools to improve meal quality, lower costs, and support local agriculture.

Under this grant, the Good Food Buffalo Coalition helped secure Buffalo Public Schools’ implementation of GFPP. With the baseline assessment complete, it worked with district decision-makers to identify key opportunities to shift purchasing in line with GFPP. The Coalition also partnered with Buffalo Public Schools’ Office of Nutrition Services to maximize the potential of the district’s new centralized kitchen to prepare scratch-cooked, fresh meals for the district’s 30,000 students. The Good Food Buffalo Coalition also continued to strengthen its membership and educated local and State policymakers about GFPP.

Home HeadQuarters, Inc.

Buffalo suffers from the highest rates of childhood lead poisoning in New York State and the country, largely because more than 90% of the housing stock was built before lead-based paint was banned.

Childhood lead poisoning can cause irreversible damage, resulting in issues with learning, development, and cognition. Lead poisoning affects communities of color and immigrant communities disproportionately. Children in Buffalo’s low-income neighborhoods and communities of color are 12 times more likely to be diagnosed with elevated blood lead levels than children who live in the city’s predominantly white neighborhoods. Refugee families, who make up a growing proportion of Buffalo’s population, are at a heightened risk. They are more likely to live in Buffalo’s substandard housing with lead exposure because they face limited affordable housing options and are unfamiliar with health and housing codes. Furthermore, language and cultural barriers and difficulties navigating health systems complicate the ability to mitigate lead exposure for refugee families. In 2024, NYHealth awarded Home HeadQuarters (HHQ) a grant to address high rates of childhood lead poisoning in Buffalo through community education, lead testing, housing remediation, and improved clinical follow-up.

Under this grant, HHQ will lead the Buffalo and Erie County Lead Safe Task Force. In 2023, the task force adopted a strategic plan to coordinate and deploy complementary community engagement and education, health care, early intervention, and code enforcement strategies. The task force partnered with Jericho Road Community Health Center, which serves many pediatric patients diagnosed with elevated lead levels. HHQ will expand upon Jericho Road’s Community Health Worker (CHW) program to facilitate health and social services for refugee and immigrant children with elevated lead levels. The program will connect children who test positive to a dedicated CHW who will help families navigate resources. CHWs will conduct home visits, offer case management, distribute lead safety cleaning kits, and assist with interpretation at home visits from Erie County Department of Health (DOH) inspectors. CHWs will also educate property owners about the harmful effects of lead, connect them to mitigation training through the Erie County DOH, and provide guidance on financing for lead remediation services. In addition, HHQ will coordinate a campaign to push for stronger rental housing regulations and increased resources for lead hazard remediation.

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Region: Western NY