FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 2, 2003

LARSON ANNOUNCES $322,000 FEDERAL GRANT FOR CHARTER OAK HEALTH CENTER

WASHINGTON, D.C.- U.S. Congressman John B. Larson (CT-01) today announced that the Charter Oak Health Center (COHC) in Hartford has been awarded a $322,000 federal grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to help assist patients with HIV/AIDS. The funding was awarded under the Ryan White Title III Early Intervention Program. The grant will help provide comprehensive programs and accessible clinical care needed by HIV/AIDS patients in the Hartford area. The grant will also fund early intervention and outreach services for the region.

"This grant will help bring the most appropriate care to HIV and AIDS patients in the region," said Larson. "I am pleased that Charter Oak Health Center in Hartford, which has been serving the area's low-income and homeless populations for nearly 25 years, was able to secure this valuable funding."

"We are honored to be the recipient of the Ryan White Title III: Early Intervention Services grant award. Our agency serves the City of Hartford, a city with the most concentrated population of HIV/AIDS patients in the State of Connecticut. It is important that we maintain the necessary resources to effectively care for this underserved population," said Alfreda D. Turner, President and CEO of Charter Oak Health Center.

In March, Congressman Larson wrote a letter to the Health Resources Services Administration, a branch of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, urging that the funding be awarded.

Since 1999, the COHC has been operating under the Ryan White program that has allowed the organization to assist approximately 400 HIV/AIDS cases each year. The funding program is named for the Indiana teenager who was infected with the illness after a blood transfusion and died in 1990.

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