This month, on the second Monday – HOCC returns to in-person programming since we temporally held our in-person programming following our annual March 9th 2020 National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day (NWGHAAD).  In April 2020  we created and launched a new responsive initiative to immediately respond to the COVID-19 Pandemic and replace our Health and Wellness HOCC flagship monthly luncheon.  It was so important to us  that we keep  HOCC women engaged no-matter what – so we continued our monthly programming now in the safety of their home. This new initiative called  HOCC on the Go…  engaged nearly 100 women every month with a large teal mailer sent to women’s homes with the essence of HOCC including a Health and Wellness Newsletter, safety items, masks, hand-sanitizer, healthy snacks, essential coupons,  gifts such as journals, word searches, coloring books, and even HOCC playing cards to help keep our minds active and reduce stress, and of coarse our traditional items such as raffles, inspirational cards, mints, and evaluations for their feedback and progress.

So we are back!

The Healing Our Community Collaborative, fondly known as HOCC, has been providing HIV health education and prevention programs for nearly 3,500 women living with, affected by, or at risk for HIV/AIDS in the Greater Boston area and throughout Massachusetts since 1997. As a small voluntary, nurse-led, peer-driven grassroots non-profit organization, HOCC remains the leader of a community of women reaching out to their peers to reduce the social determinants of health including societal inequities to accessing optimal health care and services that have historically, had a direct negative impact on our community of women. All of HOCC’s programs are for women, by women, about women and an important priority for HOCC is to work toward eliminating health disparities by educating and empowering women to work together toward social change.

See you next month at HOCC on the second Monday of each month in-person or on ZOOM for our monthly health and wellness small group meetings – check our calendar!