PEACE & HEALTH | A Busboys and Poets Books Presentation
Date and Time
Jun 6, 2023 6:00 pm
Location
450K
450 K St NW, Washington, District of Columbia, 20001
Jun 6, 2023 6:00 pm
450K
Peace & Health is the story behind this improbable effort: the 20-year-old who plants the flag in his small hometown of Middletown, Connecticut; the daughter of a sharecropper, who made her way north during the great migration and becomes the North Star of the drive to transform health in the community; the son of a Jewish émigré and pharmacist who breaks from his peers to support the cause; the musician who played in the big bands of the South in the 1930’s, who loses his teeth and is now determined to make sure others do not lose theirs; and the college student and future US Senator who helps buy the building so the free clinic would not be shut down permanently. A young nurse-practitioner joins the organization as it expands beyond one Connecticut town, and today, CHC and its Weitzman Institute operate programs across the US, transforming the delivery of health care for populations who have been ignored.
Author Charles Barber and Community Health Care's Mark Masselli are joining us on the Busboys stage to share their experience regarding community activism and healthcare. Copies of the book will be available for purchase during and after the event, and Barber will be signing following the program.
This event is free and open to all. Our program begins at 6:00 pm, and will be followed by an audience Q&A. Copies of PEACE & HEALTH will be available for purchase before and after the event. Please note that this event is IN PERSON and will NOT be livestreamed.
We ask that guests RSVP in order to receive direct updates about the event from Busboys and Poets Books.
Charles Barber is a Writer in Residence at Wesleyan University, a Lecturer in Psychiatry at the Yale University School of Medicine, and the author of the critically acclaimed books Songs from the Black Chair, Comfortably Numb, Citizen Outlaw, and In The Blood. He was educated at Harvard and Columbia universities, and lives in Connecticut with his family.
Mark Masselli is president, CEO, and founder of Community Health Center, Inc., Connecticut’s largest provider of medical, dental, and behavioral healthcare for the underserved. A Middletown, Conn. native, Masselli founded CHC in 1972 with a group of community activists. CHC currently provides team-based primary care services to more than 150,000 patients at 200 sites across Connecticut and is an innovator in the delivery of primary care to special populations. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, CHC was called upon by Connecticut’s executive branch to build and operate the state’s largest drive-through mass vaccination sites. Masselli led this historic effort, during which CHC administered more than 500,000 vaccines. In addition, CHC organized hundreds of mobile vaccination clinics, bringing vaccines directly into the most vulnerable communities. Masselli serves as board chair of the National Institute for Medical Assistant Advancement and of the national e-Consult provider ConferMED, is Treasurer of the Board of Directors of the national School-Based Health Alliance, and is a member of the Goodspeed Opera House Board of Trustees. In 2022, he was appointed to the State of Connecticut's Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Working Group. He was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters by Wesleyan University in 2009 for his work in the healthcare field.
