The Home Base Program, a joint venture of the Red Sox Foundation and Massachusetts General Hospital, was honored with a $1.1 million grant from the McCormick Foundation and Major League Baseball in a ceremony before a game between the Red Sox and the Baltimore Orioles at Fenway Park.
The program, founded in 2009, is aimed at providing support and assistance to veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury, and their families.
In the two year's since its inception, the Home Base Program has served over 450 veterans and family members, many of them hailing from Boston and the surrounding communities.
With this grant, the program hopes to create a Telemedicine Center, which would allow veterans to contact their physicians and counselors from their own home and greatly expand the reach of the program outside the Boston area.
"Home Base is committed to breaking down barriers to care, like geography, for veterans and their families." said John Parrish, M.D., director of Home Base. "For veterans with combat stress or traumatic brain injury, getting to Boston can compound their stress. This generous grant will help remove one obstacle standing in the way of veterans and families getting the care they have earned and desperately need."
Parrish was one of the founders of Home Base, along with Massachusetts General Hospital President Peter Slavin, M.D., Red Sox Foundation executive director and Red Sox senior vice president Meg Vaillancourt and Red Sox chairman Tom Werner. Werner was on the field at Fenway to receive the ceremonial check from McCormick Foundation senior vice president Donald Cooke.
"This generous grant from the McCormick Foundation and Major League Baseball … will enable the Red Sox Foundation and Massachusetts General Hospital Home Base Program to significantly expand the clinical services we can offer our veterans as well as the support services we provide veterans families throughout Red Sox Nation," Werner said.
For more information on the Home Base Program and its initiatives, visit homebaseprogram.org
