In 2021, PD Movers invited a group of Black and African American individuals with Parkinson’s and their care partners to develop an educational guide for Parkinson’s designed specifically for the Black and African American community. This group of “movers” includes doctors, researchers, and teachers from Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC) and Teachers College, Columbia University. What came from those initial gatherings is a beautiful storybook filled with narratives of African American and Black individuals and care partners who are living and thriving with Parkinson’s.
In 2023, the Davis Phinney Foundation was able to do a three part webinar series highlighting this resource and provided a small community grant to help the PD Movers team print more books and continue their outreach.
Thursday, January 19, 2023
Thursday, February 16, 2023
Monday, April 24, 2023
We have put an indefinite hold on our Community Grants program as of January 2024.
When we started our HPC Community Grants Program in 2021, we did so because we saw a very real need to invest in grassroots solutions to challenges of access, awareness, and engagement, particularly in underserved communities. Since then, we have been able to invest $470,000 into programs that have moved the needle on creating a more complete path to care, health literacy, and living well in communities across the country.
This pause in community funding is not a pause in our commitment to advancing the agenda of equitable access and care for all people living with Parkinson’s. Nor is it a divestment in the power of grassroots organizing. While we aim to bring this granting program back in the future, we continue to invest in communities through our Healthy Parkinson’s Communities™ initiative and programs including our Ambassador Leadership program, HPC Network, Hispanic Community Engagement, and (most recently) Pedaling for Parkinson’s. Through this effort, we still intend to be a partner with leaders like you who have the vision and creativity necessary to change how people live with Parkinson’s in communities everywhere.