WORCESTER – Derrick Kiser, the former city gang leader who now leads a nonprofit aimed at addressing trauma in kids, is hosting a community cleanup and vaccination event Saturday at City Hall to kick off Mental Health Awareness Month.
“Mental health doesn’t have a geography, color or race,” Kiser, who has invited leaders from the community, legislature and police, said this week, stressing the importance, especially during the current times, of mental health awareness.
Kiser said the last year – from the global pandemic to widespread unrest regarding racial injustice – should be a reason to draw together and rally around the common experience of trauma.
WORCESTER The city Friday said it intends to implement a police body camera program by 2022 at the latest, and will start scheduling meetings to get community input shortly.
“The city is committed to a body camera program, and will soon be engaging in community conversations on what that would look like,” spokesman Walter Bird wrote in an email to the Telegram & Gazette on Friday.
“I’m grateful for the announcement from the city today,” James P. McGovern, the city’s longtime Democratic Congressman, said in a telephone interview, adding that federal COVID-19 relief funds should ease the program’s cost.
Millbury receives grant for public spaces
The Millbury-Sutton Chronicle
Frost and Moore Announce Millbury Awarded Grant for Improving Public Spaces
BOSTON Rep. Paul K. Frost, R-Auburn, and Sen. Michael O. Moore, D-Millbury, announced that the town of Millbury has been selected as a recipient of a grant from the Shared Winter Streets and Spaces program, an initiative offered by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation that enables municipalities to improve the condition of public spaces for safer transit and recreational activities.
Millbury has been awarded $70,418 for the addition of lighting, signage, seating, crosswalks and planters to revitalize the downtown area into a more accessible destination for pedestrians to visit, shop, eat, work and live.
UPDATED: Feb. 26, 2021 at 8:40 p.m.
A bill spearheaded by student organizers, including Harvard alumni, to establish protections for survivors of sexual harassment at colleges and universities in Massachusetts beyond existing provisions in Title IX was signed into law by Governor Charlie D. Baker â79 last month.
By the time it passed, the bill boasted 160 co-sponsors in the Massachusetts State House, including lead sponsors State Senators Michael O. Moore and William N. Brownsberger â78, and State Reps. Lori A. Ehrlich and Tricia Farley-Bouvier, all Democrats. It was originally co-drafted and filed six years ago by student organizers, including then-Harvard student John B. Gabrieli â16.