The I Am Trenton Community Foundation and Isles, Inc. have announced Spring 2023 Old Trenton Neighborhood Grant awards totaling $48,500 for eight arts, culture, beautification, and business development projects in the neighborhood bordered by Perry Street, State Street, Route 1, and North Broad Street in Trenton. These grants provide support in specific neighborhoods where the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs (DCA) provides funding to support resident-driven plans as part of the Neighborhood Revitalization Tax Credit (NRTC) program.
“We are so proud to help these creative thinkers put their projects to work engaging neighbors and enhancing the beauty, safety and vibrancy of Old Trenton,” said Marelyn Rivera, co-president of the I Am Trenton Community Foundation.
IAT Co-President Michelle Ruess added, “We thank everyone who applied, and we can’t wait to see your great ideas at work in our community.”
Spring 2023 Old Trenton Neighborhood Grants recipients include:
• Puerto Rican Community Center: Enhance multicultural areas in each classroom to provide children access to materials from different cultures around the world, emphasizing their cultures and where they come from.
• Trenton Puerto Rican Community & Friends: Host events which bridge the Puerto Rican experience from La Isla to the streets of the Old Trenton Neighborhood where many of the first families who arrived from Puerto Rico built a home and a family.
• Trenton City Girlz: Launch a Girl Scouts troop empower and encourage youth within the Old Trenton Neighborhood.
• Grown Vegan Apothecary & DIY Bar: Host community activities to advance wellness, self-care products and neighborhood engagement.
• Egun Omode Performing Arts Collective: Provide classes in West African dance, drums and sekere percussion classes to advance knowledge of West African and Caribbean cultures.
• Bentrice Jusu: Create “Potential Project Pop Out experience” featuring a short documentary of the artist’s work creating the multi-media project reflecting the impact of violence, engaging visitors to recognize and act on their “Potential,” and selling memorabilia.
• Tha Block Trenton: Engage neighborhood residents, collect oral histories to share life stories through organized affinity spaces and host a community meal.
• Greater Mt. Zion AME Church: Preserve the history of one of the first African Methodist Episcopal churches organized in 1816 and tell the story to residents, students and city visitors.
IAT and Isles plan to offer another round of OTN grants in August, 2023. The grant program is funded by the New Jersey Neighborhood Revitalization Tax Credit Program and builds on priorities of the 2007 Old Trenton Neighborhood plan and the 2016 Creek to Canal Creative District plan (available at www.creektocanalcreative.org). These grants only support projects physically located inside or serving residents of the Old Trenton neighborhood. Funded projects focus on either Business Development or Community Investment. IAT has been raising funds and supporting grassroots efforts across the city since 2007.
More information: www.iamtrenton.org.
The Penn Medicine Princeton Cancer Center has received a $2.5 million grant from the Bristol Myers Squibb Foundation to help fund an innovative program to ensure holistic, patient-centered care for older adults with cancer.
The new Geriatric Oncology Program will transform cancer treatment and supportive care for older adults by expanding research opportunities, enhancing professionals’ expertise in geriatrics, and increasing outreach to seniors in the central New Jersey community.
“We serve a dynamic population that is aging and experiences higher cancer rates than the national average, and all of them deserve the very best, most personalized care we can offer,” said James Demetriades, CEO of Penn Medicine Princeton Health. “We see a significant and growing need for specialized cancer care for older adults. Today, 70 percent of our patients with cancer are 65 or older, and 18 percent are at least 80 years old. Every one of those individuals faces unique challenges, and we are committed to working with them to develop care plans that meet their unique needs.”
The Geriatric Oncology Program at Princeton Health will be led by Ramy Sedhom, MD, a clinical assistant professor of Hematology-Oncology in the Perelman School of Medicine at University of Pennsylvania. Sedhom is co-leader of the Geriatric Oncology service line across the Penn Medicine system, a faculty member at the Penn Center for Cancer Care Innovation (PC3I) of the Abramson Cancer Center, and a representative on the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) Clinical Practice Guideline Committee for Older Adult Oncology.
“Our program is rooted in the proposition of caring for the whole patient, not their disease,” Sedhom said. “There is a core tenant in geriatrics — you don’t know what you don’t know. Older adults are a distinct group with unique personal and caregiver needs. We are fortunate to receive support from the Bristol Myers Squibb Foundation to transform the cancer care of older adults in our community.”
As part of the program, patients aged 80 and older will undergo a geriatric assessment to evaluate their health condition, as well as social, cultural, spiritual, financial, and emotional factors.
Historically, older adults have not been well-represented in clinical trials, which poses a challenge for oncologists attempting to match the latest treatments with this population and results in health equity gaps in geriatric oncology care. Initiatives driven by the new Geriatric Oncology Program aim to change this.
“The Bristol Myers Squibb Foundation’s focus on heath equity has a goal to empower and scale new ideas with the potential to improve and flourish,” said John Damonti, president of the Bristol Myers Squibb Foundation. “In that spirit, we are proud to support the creation of a geriatric oncology program at Penn Medicine Princeton Health. This new program will provide comprehensive, personalized care to people over 65, who face particular needs that can often be overlooked. It will also fund innovative research, infrastructure development, education and outreach to expand the reach and impact of this work.’’
The grant will support the Geriatric Oncology Program’s efforts to build a research infrastructure to design and implement clinical trials to improve the care of older adults with cancer. It will also bolster an array of other crucial activities, such as:
• Recruiting multidisciplinary teams of professionals with expertise in geriatrics, including clinicians, supportive care staff, and community health navigators.
• Testing new treatments and care delivery models by bringing new research from Penn Medicine’s Abramson Cancer Center to patients in central New Jersey.
• Expanding geriatric competencies of Princeton Health staff through education and increasing outreach to seniors through community health navigators.
More information: www.princetonhcs.org/care-services/cancer-center.
