Celebrating 20 Years of Service

Dear Friends:

Thank you for joining us to support the work of Connecticut Institute For Communities, Inc. (CIFC) at our Annual Gala. Our honoree this evening, George Mulvaney, President & CEO of Mulvaney Mechanical, has been a tremendous supporter of CIFC’s work as well as the work of many other area non-profits. We also remember Dr. Thomas F. Draper, who was one of the founding physicians of CIFC’s Federally Qualified Health Center, now known as CIFC Health.

Since our last event in August 2022, CIFC’s work in strengthening families and building communities has continued at an impressive pace. To do so, we’ve focused first on strengthening our organization from within, with the goal of being a top place to work in the region. Since 2022, our CIFC-Wide initiatives have focused on our strategic planning, communications, and celebrating the diversity of our workforce and communities. Specifically, we have:

CIFC Wide

• Launched a new Strategic Planning Process, which continues into 2023.
• Launched a newly formed Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Accessibility & Belonging (DEIBA) Committee.
• Added new grant writing, HR, Facilities, and communications staff.
• Built new platforms for employee communication and will soon launch a new website.
• Grew to employ over 400 dedicated staff members in western CT.

Additionally, we’ve made great strides within CIFC’s programmatic divisions in 2022 and the first half of 2023:

CIFC’s Federally Qualified Health Center, CIFC Health, continues to grow and serve more patients in the region at an impressive pace, all while serving as an innovative incubator for new primary care doctors.  In the latter half of 2022 and the first half of 2023, CIFC Health has:

• Been named a Gold Quality Leader for ranking in the top 10% of over 1400 health centers nationwide in patient quality outcomes.
• Received accreditation by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) in Psychiatry, which allows CIFC Health to start a new Psychiatry Residency Program as of July 1, 2023. The program will be a 4-year training program and start with a class for 4 first year residents (post M.D. graduates), growing to a total complement of 16 psychiatry residents by 2026-2027. This program joins CIFC Health’s 10-year-old Internal Medicine Residency Program, which has graduated 65 Internal Medicine Physicians, over 85% of whom have gone on to work in primary care.
• Hired two new graduates of our Internal Medicine Residency Program to be full-time attending physicians on our staff, fulfilling our mission to help grow the next generation of doctors dedicated to working in primary care and in underserved communities.
• Launched a Medication for Opioid Use Disorder (MOUD) Program at our 70 Main St, Danbury location.
• Opened 5 new sites in New Milford Public Schools, focusing primarily on behavioral health services for youth, with plans to launch a site at Brookfield High School this fall. This will bring CIFC Health’s total sites to 16.
• Added key new roles, including a staff nutritionist, outreach staff, a Behavioral Health Director, a full-time Chief of Dentistry, and additional pediatric and behavioral health staff.
• Made investments in new technology and services for population health management.
• Increased the individuals served by CIFC’s Women Infants and Children (WIC) Nutrition Program by nearly 13%.

• CIFC’s Early Learning Programs in Danbury and Norwalk collectively served over 500 children and families in the 2022-2023 academic year through high-quality, comprehensive early childhood education and family development services, including Head Start, Early Head Start, and state School Readiness and Child Daycare Contractor programming. We opened a newly expanded Early Head Start location at 80 Main St, Danbury in the fall of 2022, which houses 5 Early Head Start classrooms in a state-of-the-art setting, and we have plans to renovate our Norwalk Franklin site in the second half of 2023.

• CIFC’s Danbury Community Center (DCC) at 12 Boughton Street, which is a unique supplement to both CIFC Health and our CIFC Early Learning Programs, officially re-opened on July 1, 2022 and has been growing in membership and offerings ever since, including with swim lessons, Zumba, pickleball, basketball, and more. We are currently working to address the inequities in swimming capabilities in our community and launching corporate wellness offerings for area businesses and their employees.

• CIFC’s Housing Division includes the management of the Beaver Street Apartments Cooperative (BSAC), which serves as affordable housing for nearly 180 individuals in Danbury, including over 38 families with children and another 32 elderly or disabled individuals. CIFC is proud of HUD’s recent physical assessment of the property, upon which BSAC scored in the high 90s (or an “A”). In 2023 and beyond, CIFC seeks to expand its housing division with the building of Danbury House at 11 Boughton Street, a housing development focused on seniors.

Collaborative Efforts

CIFC’s internal programmatic work has also been strengthened by our strategic focus on collaborative partnerships. We recognize that we can have a greater impact on the community and those we serve by partnering and collaborating in a meaningful way with other organizations. In 2022 and 2023, some examples of this work include:

• Providing space for the New American Dream Foundation’s Newcomers Program at CIFC Health’s location at 132 Main Street to help better serve new immigrants and individuals/families to the Danbury community in a streamlined way.

• Partnering with Nuvance Health and the United Way of Western CT, to help launch the first ever Greater Danbury Food Farmacy, which will be located at CIFC’s Danbury Community Center and is slated to open in the Fall of 2023. The Food Farmacy will help serve area patients, including CIFC Health patients, facing both hypertension and food insecurity. 

• Holding community resource fairs through both CIFC Health and our CIFC Early Learning Programs, which included dozens of area non-profits, to gather community resource information in one place for our patients, clients, students and their families.

• Partnering with the War Memorial Association to offer discounted memberships for those looking to join the Danbury Community Center and vice versa.

• Serving as a key member of the Danbury Collaborative’s Cradle to Career Leadership Task Force organized by the United Way of Western CT.

Our focus on collaboration will continue in years to come as we recognize the importance of creating a unified network of providers to better serve the most vulnerable individuals and families in our communities.

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This evening’s honoree, George Mulvaney, President & CEO of Mulvaney Mechanical, has grown Mulvaney Mechanical to one of the largest mechanical contractors in Western Connecticut, and has also established Mulvaney Properties, which has developed over 20 properties in the Danbury region. Although this alone could have kept George busy, he has continually made time to give back to his community and does so by serving on the board of directors of Ability Beyond and the Association of Religious Communities (ARC), as Board Chairman of Regional Hospice and Palliative Care, and as a volunteer and/or donor to many other organizations, including CIFC. George also serves as a Management Trustee of the Connecticut Pipes Trades State Pension Fund, and he is a past President and current board member of the Mechanical Contractors Association of Connecticut and a member and a past president of the Connecticut Building Congress (CBC). He is also a former member of the National Education Committee of the Mechanical Contractors Association of America (MCAA). George embodies the spirit of giving and giving back.

Likewise, Dr. Thomas F. Draper, MD, MPH, was a man known for giving – first and foremost to his family and his friends, but also to medicine, community medicine, and to CIFC. Dr. Tom Draper began his career in pediatric medicine at Danbury Hospital, where he worked for 60 years, and went on to hold several esteemed titles there, while also serving as the Medical Directors of both Newtown and Danbury. Dr Draper was instrumental in helping to start the Greater Danbury Community Health Center in 2010, which is now CIFC Health, and served in many positions with CIFC, including: community ambassador, public health advisor, and interim medical director. Dr Draper passed away earlier this year at the age of 96 and was – until his last days – still talking about ways he could help CIFC and CIFC Health.

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It is in this spirit of giving, volunteerism, and outstanding commitment that we remember Dr. Thomas F. Draper with love and pride, and we honor and thank George Mulvaney for his continued, lasting work on the region and at CIFC. We also thank all of you for being with us to make our work in strengthening families and building communities possible.

      With warmest wishes and gratitude,

Dr. Francis J. Muska, Ph.D.                                             Katie Curran, esq.