Eastern Bank donates $100G to LCHC

LYNN – Eastern Bank put its best charitable foot forward Monday by making a $100,000 commitment to the Lynn Community Health Center where construction crews have begun work on a new wing.The health center at 269 Union St. provides medical services to more than a third of the city’s estimated 100,000 residents.”Eastern Bank is an incredible champion for the city of Lynn and the people of this community,” said Lori Abrams Berry, executive director of the health center. “This investment in our project will help make it possible for the health center to provide quality, accessible health care to everyone who needs it.”Richard Holbrook, chairman and chief executive officer of Eastern Bank, presented the grant. “Eastern Bank has a long-standing tradition of supporting organizations that serve Lynn and few organizations are as vital to the community as the Lynn Community Health Center, so it was a relatively easy decision to support this important expansion,” he said. “We applaud the health center for all that it does to provide access to quality health care. We share the health center’s commitment to making Lynn a better place to work and live.”The center is the largest provider of primary care in Lynn, serving 33,286 people annually – of which more than 45 percent are children, according to spokesman Cindy Stegner-Wilson.”In the past two years, the health center has seen over 400 new patients each month and the demand continues to grow at a pace that is outstripping the capacity of the current space,” she said, noting that the new wing will enable the facility to add a walk-in clinic and four primary care providers who together can see more than 4,000 new patients each year.The $11.9 million project is funded primarily through a $6 million capital campaign. Funding sources also include federal stimulus money, tax-exempt bonds and new tax credits.The Eastern Bank grant arrives as the Lynn health center joins 51 health centers statewide and over 1,000 others across the country in celebrating National Health Center Week. The Lynn facility, founded in 1971, is the third largest in Massachusetts.Steger-Wilson said studies have shown that medical expenses for patients seen at community health centers are 24 percent lower compared to patients seen elsewhere.”This is due to our focus on preventative care and health promotion, which reduce unnecessary emergency room visits, help bring chronic diseases under control and provide an additional focus on educational and support services that many of our patients need due to challenges brought on by poverty, lack of education and language or cultural barriers,” she said.