Norwalk Community Health Center, Inc.

120 Connecticut Avenue, Norwalk, CT 06854

Norwalk Community Health Center, Inc. Governor’s Non-profit Grant Program award of $150,000 funded the purchase of a generator for our main site at 120 Connecticut Avenue, Norwalk, CT. 

In April of 2010 Norwalk Community Health Center, Inc. moved into this new state of the art facility.  But our construction budget at the time did not have adequate funds to purchase a generator.  Any power outage has forced us to cease service delivery as the core portion of the building has no access to natural light and with the implementation of an electronic medical record system 8 years ago power outages make those records inaccessible and make the delivery of care virtually impossible. 

Since 2010 we have had over 10 instances of power outages for various reasons that have closed the Health Center. The Health Center serves over 250 patients every day and even minimal power losses are extremely disruptive, as one never knows how long the outage will last. 

The generator we installed in 2016 through this grant now allows us to have power for our entire 24,500 square foot facility in less than a minute when a power outage occurs.  Since the generator installation in the fall of 2017 we have not had a power outage but when one happens, we are confident in our ability to serve over 13,500 unique patients and over 52,000 visits annually to the community without interruption. 

Although it is customary to include feedback on client and staff impact, in this instance, we’re happy to report there has been none. Because the generator works quietly and invisibly behind the scenes if and as needed and is on standby the rest of time, power disruptions and Center closing due to outages are now a thing of the past.