Thousands of dollars in federal funds are going towards helping the Mazzoni Center in Philadelphia, the largest LGBTQ+ wellness center in the city. The money will go towards important facility and security upgrades and wellness services. NBC10’s Miguel Martinez-Valle has the details.
Senator Bob Casey announced that the Mazzoni Center in Philadelphia will be receiving thousands of dollars from Washington on Thursday, June 6.
The Mazzoni Center is the city’s largest LGBTQ+ wellness center that provides medical services for the community.
“I’m grateful to be here during Pride Month to announce good news from Washington which doesn’t happen every week,” Casey said.
Casey joined the Mazzoni Center to announce that they will be receiving $400,000 in community project funding.
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The money is going to help the center invest in security, updating technology and a generator to keep electricity on during power outages.
“We have given over 5,500 vaccines over the last year, we’ve drawn 7,200 sets of labs over the last year, and we also keep onsite expensive, long acting and life-saving HIV medication,” Dr. Stacey Trooskin, with the Mazzoni Center, said.
As the largest LGBTQ+ serving medical center in the city, the center works in HIV testing, prevention and treatment daily to help people living with the virus become undetectable and untransmittable.
“One thing that we’re doing is really trying to reduce the stigma around everything from HIV to even being tested for HIV. Our take is knowing your status is really the first step and then the great thing about it is that you can live a full healthy life with HIV so we’re really ensuring the people know that,” Sultan Shakir, president of the Mazzoni Center, said.
According to the most recent data from the Philadelphia Department of Public Health, as of 2022 there are 18,658 people living with HIV in the city. The majority of them are Black and brown men.
The federal funds the center is receiving will allow them to continue their patient treatments and also help them expand testing so everyone can know their status.
“To exist feels so important,” Sam Wilburn, a medical provider, said. “To just show people like of course you can come here, of course we will do everything we can to protect you, of course we will do everything we can to take care of you and I don’t think that’s necessarily present in other places.”
The money will go toward the Mazzoni Center on Bainbridge Street but also at their testing center in Washington Square.
