UTICA — Excellus BlueCross BlueShield recently awarded Midtown Utica Community Center (MUCC) a Community Health Award of $3,000 to support their Children’s Literacy and Academic Success Support (CLASS) program. According to officials, this program provides ongoing support for local refugee youth, who often struggle to succeed in their academic work due to language and cultural barriers.

A large group of volunteers, many of whom are refugees attending nearby high schools and colleges, provide tutoring and academic support. The Community Health Award will fund supplemental learning material including texts, whiteboards, art supplies, writing supplies, computer software, and youth literature.

Kay Klo, Midtown Utica Community Center executive director, explained, “The structured support system of CLASS ensures that students have ample opportunity to achieve academic success. Our program invests in the future of our students as well as the future of the local community using a hyper-local public health approach to understand the cultural barriers and address them in ways that are preferred by our multicultural community members.”

Officials say MUCC strives to support the local community of Utica by providing members of all ages, classes, ethnicities, and identities with opportunities, resources, and avenues to create and experience a better quality of life. Since its founding in 2014, MUCC’s primary mission has been to cultivate an inclusive, multicultural, and refugee-friendly space that welcomes all.

Having served more than 4,000 community members, the organization’s efforts focus in three main areas: education and self-development; health and wellness; and arts and culture.

“The company’s Community Health Awards demonstrate a corporate commitment to support local organizations that share our mission as a nonprofit health plan,” said Eve Van de Wal, Utica regional president of Excellus BlueCross BlueShield. “We recognize that addressing social determinants of health, such as education, is vital to the health and wellbeing of our communities and we are pleased to support MUCC with this essential health funding to help remove barriers to education for those in our community.”