SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WGGB/WSHM) - Hampden District Attorney Anthony Gulluni awarded more than $45,000 to local groups fighting addiction and supporting families. On Wednesday, Gulluni presented a check at Michael’s House in Springfield. The money comes from the office’s drug diversion and education fund.

It’ll go to four Hampden County organizations: Baystate Health, the Michael J. Dias Foundation, Power Forward, and the Springfield Vietnamese Cultural Association, “these four organizations are well known to us. We’ve had long-standing partnerships with some of them. We’ve vetted these organizations and their work speaks for itself, they do amazing things,” Gulluni said.

We had a chance to speak with Power Forward founder — who’s also a two-time Stanley Cup champion and U.S. Hockey Hall of famer, Kevin Stevens.

Stevens told us how his personal experience with addiction shaped the work Power Forward does, and how the funds are used to support the community, “we give them scholarships for four to six to eight weeks to sober houses. And then it gives them an opportunity to kind of further their life. You know, they can’t come back to the place where they came from, that’s almost impossible to stay sober if you’re going to go back to the corner.”

Across the four organizations, the grants support medical and behavioral health care, recovery housing and peer support, programs that tackle addiction stigma, and critical services like housing, education, and health care.

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