Communities That Care Coalition
Promoting health, well-being, and equity among young people in Franklin County and the North Quabbin
It was his own mental health crisis that helped Michael A. Walrond, Jr. to understand and embrace mental health care. “Out of nowhere, I had a suicidal ideation,” Walrond recalls. He was in his late 30s at the time, already busy building a life and expanding his congregation at First Corinthian Baptist in Harlem, New York.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natasha_Rothwell
Natasha Rothwell (born October 18, 1980)[1][2] is an American actress, writer, and producer. She is best known for her work on the HBO series Insecure as Kelli Prenny, and The White Lotus as Belinda, for which she earned a nomination for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie. In September 2024, Hulu released How to Die Alone, a comedy series starring and co-created by Rothwell.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marian_Anderson
Marian Anderson (February 27, 1897 – April 8, 1993)[1] was an American contralto. She performed a wide range of music, from opera to spirituals. Anderson performed with renowned orchestras in major concert and recital venues throughout the United States and Europe between 1925 and 1965.
The idea for Detroit Hives was sparked in the winter of 2016 when Timothy Paule Jackson discovered that local raw honey was able to cure a cold that no other remedy had. After learning about the medicinal properties of honey and seeing how it was able to provide his immune system the boost it needed, he and partner Nicole Lindsey became fascinated with bees. The couple learned as much as they could, enrolling in local beekeeping classes over the next few months. Both being proud Detroit natives, they recognized the abandoned lots in the city could serve a greater purpose and combined their new knowledge with a need in the community. They bought their first lot in 2017, started their first urban bee farm, and Detroit Hives was born. They’ve generated buzz with their work, expanding to other lots, multiplying their number of hives and continuing to build their colony ever since. Our founders created Detroit Hives with the purpose to bring diversity and cognizance to bee awareness and rebuilding inner-city communities introducing Detroit as the place to “BEE”.
https://www.npr.org/2025/03/25/nx-s1-5272887/ashley-jackson-harpist-new-album
Some of Ashley Jackson’s earliest memories took place at church services she attended with her grandmother. The rising harp player leaned into those experiences for her sophomore album Take Me to The Water. Spirituals, and their coded messages of freedom for the enslaved, are at the heart of her arrangements of works by Alice Coltrane, Margaret Bonds and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor.
https://www.yamaha.com/en/inspired/019
Islam Elbeiti is one of only a few female bassists from Sudan. From early in life she has lived in many countries, experiencing cultures that by contrast reveal the deep-rooted prejudice against female musicians in her motherland. “Life is tough for a female musician in this country,” she tells us breezily. We asked where she gets her strength to thrive as she does.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethel_Waters
Ethel Waters (October 31, 1896 – September 1, 1977) was an American singer and actress. Waters frequently performed jazz, swing, and pop music on the Broadway stage and in concerts. She began her career in the 1920s singing blues. Her notable recordings include “Dinah“, “Stormy Weather“, “Taking a Chance on Love“, “Heat Wave“, “Supper Time“, “Am I Blue?“, “Cabin in the Sky“, “I’m Coming Virginia“, and her version of “His Eye Is on the Sparrow“. Waters was the second African American to be nominated for an Academy Award, the first African American to star on her own television show, and the first African-American woman to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award.
https://www.givingbroadly.com/the-better-buggy
It was Day 73 of pandemic quarantine and my husband Jonathan and I had just put Baby J, my busy toddler, down for bed.
We were lying on our living room floor, and my husband asked me to put together a list of groceries to order online for delivery in the morning. I looked at him and asked if he missed being able to support local, Black-owned stores and farms.
“Black-owned stores and farms” wasn’t an option you could choose on a grocery delivery app. Neither were farmers markets. We realized that if we were having this issue, there were a million others experiencing the same thing. I told him, “Today is the day we start The Better Buggy.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bessie_Smith
Bessie Smith (April 15, 1892 – September 26, 1937) was an African-American blues singer widely renowned during the Jazz Age. Nicknamed the “Empress of the Blues” and formerly Queen of the Blues, she was the most popular female blues singer of the 1930s. Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989, she is often regarded as one of the greatest singers of her era and was a major influence on fellow blues singers, as well as jazz vocalists.[1]
Born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Smith was young when her parents died, and she and her six siblings survived by performing on street corners. She began touring and performed in a group that included Ma Rainey, and then went out on her own. Her successful recording career with Columbia Records began in 1923, but her performing career was cut short by a car crash that killed her at the age of 45.
PHILADELPHIA — On a blustery winter morning, Keli McLoyd set off on foot across Kensington. This area of Philadelphia is one of the most drug-scarred neighborhoods in the U.S. In the first block, she knelt next to a man curled on the sidewalk in the throes of fentanyl, xylazine or some other powerful street drug.
“Sir, are you alright? You OK?” asked McLoyd, who leads Philadelphia’s city-run overdose response unit. The man stirredand took a breath.”OK, I can see he’s moving, he’s good.”
In Kensington, good means still alive. By the standards of the deadly U.S. fentanyl crisis, that’s a victory.