For The People

We're opening today with the Yankee Institute, which just launched a new comprehensive database of every public labor contract in the state, and how it can help you and your elected leaders better understand how they impact our communities and economy. Then we're going to have an energized conversation with the new CEO of one of the state's oldest human services agencies, the Children's Center of Hamden. We'll learn how this new, vibrant agency leader is thinking outside the box, while helping established staff, students, and clients stay safe while benefiting from all the Center's services. And we'll close on another critical subject involving our kids and the state's workforce - as we welcome a representative from Connecticut's Office of Early Childhood, talking about a brand new partnership with the Women's Business Development Council - laser focusing on protecting, enhancing, and sustaining our fragile network of childcare centers.

We're kicking it off talking about 'The Journey to Equity and Inclusion' in our workplaces with the Chief Knowledge Officer from the Society for Human Resource Management talking about SHRM’s Together Forward @Work initiative.  Then our guest from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University will hit the high points of a new study on how Connecticut has gone so wrong when it comes to administering public pensions, and what can be done about it. And then we'll reconnect with the Community Action Agency serving greater New Haven, and key in on the statewide home energy assistance program. Our guest will explain everything you need to know about it - and how to gather the information you'll need to apply and qualify.

Meet a Connecticut cultural anthropologist talking about a survey he completed that illustrates how COVID-19 will permanently transform consumer culture — and ways family relationships and values changed during quarantine. Then we'll catch up with the President of Goodwin University to hear how his institution is partnering with Sacred Heart University and the Paier College of Art to work with the University of Bridgeport creating a new model for higher education. And we'll close on the serious subject of distracted driving with the founder and an incoming UConn student scholar promoting Project Yellow Light - helping teens and young adults reach their peers with potentially life saving messages about safe driving through a creative scholarship initiative.

We reached out to the President of ROVAC - the Registrars of Voters Association of Connecticut - to talk about the most important updates and things you need to know to easily and successfully cast your ballots in the upcoming August 11 primaries. Then we'll head to the gardens of Common Ground High School - a charter school in New Haven and the oldest environmental charter school in the United States to learn how its staff is preparing students for college success and a lifetime of environmental leadership.  And we'll close with the latest in our series 'Counting on 2020' Census Segments as we head into Census PUSH WEEK. We'll tap a regional census director to learn how PUSH Week aims to increase 2020 Census self-response rates via activities, parades, social messaging campaigns and more.

Meet an environmental sanitarian from Meriden - who plays a role in the state's Lead Poisoning Prevention and Control Program residents identifying and helping folks understand and eliminate dangers posed by lead - which is especially risky to children. Then we'll hear another story of tragedy overcome by inspiration with the founder of A Promise to Jordan - a statewide nonprofit honoring a victim of the opioid epidemic aimed at eliminating the stigma of addiction, assisting people in accessing quality care, and giving hope that recovery is possible to those struggling with addiction. Then we will circle back with Dr. Dana Wade and Monitor My Health - working to delay or prevent obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart attack, and stroke with a CDC-recognized evidence-based lifestyle change program he is delivering to thousands in greater Bridgeport and beyond for low and often no cost.

We'll engage the new Vice President for Diversity and Inclusion and Chief Diversity Officer at the University of New Haven - Lorenzo Boyd - who also heads up the UNH Center for Advanced Policing, for the first of a couple of conversations we're planning around police practices, movements to de-fund police agencies, and the crossover points where racial diversity intersects with community policing. Then we'll talk arts and humanities with the director of CT Humanities - and find out how this decades old agency is reinventing itself as a digital and community resource, while supporting and funding intriguing programs and projects across the state. And we'll close with our partners at the CT Coalition Against Domestic Violence. If anything, the COVID pandemic has made things harder for the thousands of intimate partner and domestic abuse victims across Connecticut, so we'll touch base and get a snapshot of what's been happening in terms of prevention and response over the past few months.

This Independence Day weekend, we're paying tribute to all the folks who grow the good food we eat, who are taking steps to grow their own, or maintain their properties with organic standards in mind.  So we're playing an encore presentation from our annual pilgrimage to the Northeast Organic Farming Association's Organiconn conference - which was held earlier this year at Wesleyan University.  We caught up with NOFA's director, the event's keynote speaker, as well as a number of other guests promoting organic practices and programs that are enhancing our state's environment and public health, while engaging our youngest citizens to participate and enjoy the fruits and veggies they can raise and eat from their own personal, school, or community garden.

Our focus on the issue of COVID-19 outbreaks in nursing homes and care facilities across Connecticut starts with a national expert from AARP talking about how that organization is pursuing legislation to better support and protect residents of those facilities. Then we'll take a very personal look at a tragic COVID-19 nursing home experience that affected State Rep Michelle Cook of Torrington, and how her experience helped initiate a sweeping investigation into why so many seniors were being infected by and dying from it. We'll follow touching base with Junior Achievement of Greater Fairfield County to learn how the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the outlook of area high school seniors and their future educational or career plans. Finally, we'll remind you about an important event coming up at the Burroughs Community Center July 9 - and how a regional nonprofit called Save a Suit is aiming to help veterans who may be more food insecure because of the virus health emergency.

Has COVID-19 put you out of a job - or have you been thinking about a career change anyway? Then don't miss our latest check-in with the Workforce Alliance of South Central CT. We'll tell you about new and enhanced online career training and which employers are hiring right now! Then we'll replay our chat with the Housatonic Resources Recovery Authority about the role glass plays driving up your taxes, and what this recycling agency is doing about it. And we'll close breaking some news about Youth Continuum, which is building a first in the state (and one of the first in the nation) student-run homeless program exclusively for young adults right in downtown New Haven. 

Our first encore segment features U.S. Surgeon General Jerome M. Adams talking about the first new national report on smoking cessation since 1990, and ways to begin kicking the habit today. Then we'll replay a difficult but important conversation with the CEO of Regional Hospice - which is working to complete the fifth in-patient children's hospice center in the entire nation right in western Connecticut. Our final replay will highlight a partnership between Hazelden Betty Ford and Shatterproof that's utilizing Shatterproof's Just Five web program to promote awareness, reduce stigmas, and share information about addiction prevention and treatment.

Protecting one of your most fundamental rights and privileges as a Connecticut resident & an American - the votes you cast in on Election Day - is the subject of today's chat with the director of the USC Election Cybersecurity Initiative. Then we'll move through a busy agenda of subjects with Connecticut's Insurance Commissioner: including a new free life insurance program for front line COVID-19 health workers, and no cost coronavirus testing for all. And we'll move into LGBTQ Pride Month hosting a candid conversation with State Rep Raghib Allie-Brennan - who spent his adult life working with local LGBTQ initiatives and supporting those struggling with stigmas and prejudice as they define their own sexuality.

After celebrating National EMS Week earlier we'll circle back with an EMT who you'll see running through Shelton for 24 hours next weekend to help raise funds for a new Echo Hose Co. ambulance. Then we'll bring you some advice for folks who are aging in place while facing COVID-19 restrictions with our sources from Assisted Living Services, and the CT Association for Healthcare at Home. Then it's time for some exciting news from the Aspetuck Land Trust - which just completed a key farmland preservation project, along with an update on the group's green corridor initiative and how everyone can be part of it.

This installment of 'For the People' introduces the CEO of Wheeler discussing how this nonprofit is delivering an integrated approach to primary and behavioral health, education, and recovery - and the opening of Wheeler’s new, expanded Waterbury Family Health & Wellness Center. Then we'll talk to a former North Branford and Connecticut Teacher of the Year about how she found a successful second career in teaching, and how she works with TEACH Connecticut to encourage others to do the same. She'll also share some advice on how to help keep students engaged during the COVID-19 pandemic. And we'll close with a former CDC and Boston Health official and CEO of the Trust for America’s Health talking about Connecticut stats on alcohol, drug and suicide deaths, and why the coronavirus is expected to escalate all these destructive outcomes.

Our first field report in weeks finds us at Newtown's first-ever drive-up COVID-19 testing center. Check our chat with a PhysicianOne representative, the community's lead health official and First Selectman talking about testing and more. Then we'll celebrate all the front line responders and kick off National EMS week with a small town EMS volunteer and a municipal fire official about how they work with dispatchers and medical professionals to save lives 24/7 and especially during the pandemic. And we'll close with a medical expert representing Greenbrook TMS NeuroHealth Centers. We'll get a crash course on Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation / TMS and how it could help mitigate depression or anxiety as a result of the coronavirus emergency or other life challenges.

Today we'll start by introducing the co-founder of 4-CT, a a non-profit that unites donors with nonprofit programs that are struggling through the COVID-19 situation - and learn about local musicians uniting in song to help raise awareness for 4-CT projects. And we'll close touting the virtual 25th Annual International Festival of Arts & Ideas - bringing you artistic exhibits, food experiences, cell phone-guided walking tours, the NEA Big Read, and Ideas programming with a theme of “Democracy: We the People” all free and online. In between we'll check in with the American Lung Association to review their 2020 "State Of The Air" report and try to figure out why the state is doing so poorly protecting and preserving the very air we breathe.

Today we continue our deeper dive showcasing how local agencies and human service programs are maintaining, surviving, and continuing to serve in a COVID-19 world. First, we'll reach out to anyone who is feeling anxious, angry, sad, scared or alone during the current pandemic - to bring you an information packed and hopefully stress reducing conversation with the Executive Director of NAMI Connecticut. Then we'll learn about a Connecticut company owner who created a not-for-profit program - masksforcitizens.com - to get masks to regular folks who need them while reducing the need to divert PPE away from medical workers and responders.  And we'll close with the Connecticut Council on Environmental Quality. We'll hit a few high points of the CEQ's annual report to the Governor - aimed at keeping environmental preservation and protection efforts in focus even while he's dealing with the COVID-19 emergency.

Today we continue our deeper dive showcasing how local agencies and human service programs are maintaining, surviving, and continuing to serve in a COVID-19 world. Home confinement doesn't compare to childhood cancer patients and their families struggling with cancer and coronavirus. So meet the founder of Circle of Care, providing assistance to meet the unique and challenging needs of pediatric cancer treatment statewide.  Then we'll check in with Junior Achievement of Greater Fairfield County to tout their innovative programs to help young people chart a financially literate course for life. And we'll close with a broader glimpse of COVID-related need with the Fairfield County Community Foundation, which set up a Are you experiencing reductions in services from a local nonprofit that's pressed to make  COVID-related cutbacks? Check our chat with the Fairfield County's Community Foundation​,, which is ramping up a COVID-19 Resiliency Fund to help dozens of critical nonprofits survive through this u

Today we continue our deeper dive showcasing how local agencies and human service programs are maintaining, surviving, and continuing to serve in a COVID-19 world. We'll let you know how Eversource is keeping utility services operational, how you can save a few bucks even if you're using more energy these days, and how the utility is helping keep critical nonprofits operational during this health emergency. Then we'll check in and see how everyone is doing at the Beardsley Zoo - while learning how zoo staffers are supporting your kids education through a ton of virtual learning programs. And we'll find out how the Bridgeport Rescue Mission is maintaining its mission to feed and protect families already living on the edge facing domestic violence, poverty, and hunger. 

Today we continue our deeper dive into explaining how some local agencies and initiatives are maintaining, surviving, and continuing to serve in a COVID-19 world. We'll get a crash course on why diapers matter especially during this coronavirus emergency, and learn how and why you should reach out and help the Diaper Bank of CT. Then we'll check in with AARP CT to learn about a robust new online resource  'AARP Community Connections,' and a few other important initiatives AARP is working on. And we'll replay a recent interview with the new CEO of Boys and Girls Village, serving more than 800 clients from over 50 communities in at-risk situations.

Today we'll begin a deeper and more comprehensive dive into talking with and discussing how local agencies and initiatives are maintaining, surviving, and continuing to serve in a COVID-19 world. We'll open with ARI of Connecticut, and learn how they're continuing to serve a population of disabled individuals and their families in Fairfield County - while moving forward with a virtual fundraiser to help sustain those services. Then we'll chat with a rep from the CT League of Conservation Voters to review a number of concerns as rollbacks to environmental protection and preservation initiatives threaten our air, water, and the very spaces where we can still seek refuge from the pandemic. And we'll close with the CT Food Bank to learn how they're pivoting to respond to a massive increase in need, how you can still make a difference by donating or lacing up for the Race Against Hunger Virtual 5k Run and Walk.