I’m delighted to personally invite you to VIP’s Annual Gala, an evening dedicated to celebrating and supporting the work that strengthens and uplifts our community. 

     This year’s theme, Engaging the Community, honors the remarkable individuals whose dedication to service and collaboration inspires us all. Their efforts remind us of the incredible power we have when we come together to care for one another. 

     At VIP, we are deeply committed to breaking down barriers to health and well-being. Our mission goes beyond access to physical, mental health and substance use disorder care. We also provide stable housing, shelter, job readiness programs, food security, and so much more. These are the building blocks of a thriving life, and we are honored to be part of this work. 

     Join us for an evening of inspiration, meaningful connections, and the opportunity to make a lasting impact. Your support helps ensure that we can continue offering essential services to those in need, regardless of their financial circumstances.  Whether through sponsorship, an ad placement, ticket purchase, or a contribution, your generosity is a lifeline for so many.  

     I look forward to celebrating with you and sharing this special evening of hope and purpose! 

     With gratitude,
     Debbian Fletcher-Blake
     President & CEO

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HONOREE: Dr. Neil Calman

Dr. Calman is a Board-Certified family physician, President, CEO and co-founder of the Institute for Family Health*, which he has led since 1985. In 2012, Dr. Calman became Professor and System Chair of the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, where nearly 300 family physicians are credentialed in its 8 affiliated hospitals.

Read more about Dr. Calman

Public Health Award: Dr. Ann Marie T. Sullivan

Ann Marie T. Sullivan, MD has served as Commissioner for the New York State Office of Mental Health since 2014. She is responsible for implementing Governor Kathy Hochul’s landmark plan to transform the state’s mental health system and expand access to care for all New Yorkers. To date, this initiative has invested more than $2 billion into dramatically expanding services, supports, and capacity across the state.

Read more about Dr. Sullivan

Community Builder Award: George Hulse

George Hulse is Vice President and Special Advisor to the CEO of EmblemHealth. He has dedicated much of his resources in health care to advancing Population Health; helping medically underserved communities recognize the importance of being active participants in the management and wellness of their health care – striving to ensure that immigrant communities, working class and communities of color are not victims of health disparities. 

Read more about George Hulse

MUsical Guest: NYPD options

The New York City Police Foundation and the New York City Police Department established the OPTIONS Program, which provides innovative training programs and establishes collaborative partnerships to advance personal and professional development for NYC youth. The OPTIONS team provides workshops to engage youth in social-emotional development training, life-skills and career guidance workshops, and community wellness activities.

Thank You to Our Board

We’re grateful for the support of our Board of Directors and our Fundraising Advisory Board!

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Thank You to Our Sponsors

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Dr. Calman is a Board-Certified family physician, President, CEO and co-founder of the Institute for Family Health*, which he has led since 1985. In 2012, Dr. Calman became Professor and  System Chair of the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, where nearly 300 family physicians are credentialed in its 8 affiliated hospitals.

For fifteen years, Dr. Calman has been a leader in the national effort to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in health outcomes leading to the Institute’s designation as a National Center of Excellence in the Elimination of Disparities.

Dr. Calman is an elected member of the New York Academy of Medicine and the National Academy of Medicine. He is past Board Chair of the Community Health Center Association of New York State (CHCANYS), the American Association of Teaching Health Centers (AATHC), and the New York State Academy of Family Physicians. In 2019, he was appointed to the National Advisory Committee for the National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities.

Dr. Calman has also served on many state and national advisory councils, including over two decades on the New York State Council on Graduate Medical Education, and on the Health Information Technology Committee where he served on the Meaningful Use Subcommittee, responsible for establishing the recommendations for the deployment of HIT in practices and hospitals nationwide. He also served on the boards of Healthix and the NY eHealth Collaborative.

To help create the next generation of health care leaders, Dr. Calman started three family medicine residency programs, a nurse practitioner fellowship program and a nurse practitioner residency, designed to train providers to serve the medically underserved.

Dr. Calman is the recipient of many awards including the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Community Health Leadership Award, the American Academy of Family Physicians’ Public Health Award, the Pew Charitable Trusts’ Primary Care Achievement Award and the Physician Advocacy Award from the Institute on Medicine as a Profession. He is the recipient of the distinguished Kanter Prize from the Health Legacy Partnership and the Felix A. Fishman Award for Extraordinary Advocacy from New York Lawyers for the Public Interest. In 2024, Dr. Calman received the Leonard Tow Humanism Award and was inducted into the Gold Humanism Honor Society and into Alpha Omega Alpha – the National Medical Honor Society, by the City University of New York Medical School.

Dr. Calman’s published essays include Out of the Shadows (Health Affairs, Jan/Feb 2000); Making Health Equality a Reality: The Bronx Takes Action (Health Affairs, Mar/Apr 2005); and Separate and Unequal Care in New York City (Journal of Health Care Law & Policy 2006). In addition, Dr. Calman contributed to chapters in Caring for America, by John Stannard, To Give Their Gifts, by Richard A. Couto, and Big Doctoring in America, by Fitzhugh Mullan.

When asked what, of all his achievements he is most proud of, Dr. Calman notes that his senior leadership team is comprised of professionals who have risen through the ranks and have more than 22 years, on average, of work with the Institute. As for patients, he states “No One is Ever Turned Away.”

* The Institute for Family Health is a federally qualified community health center network, dedicated to providing primary health services to medically underserved populations. It operates 27 health centers in the Bronx, Manhattan, and the Mid-Hudson Valley, including five school- based health centers, and eight part-time centers that care for people who experience homelessness. The organization serves over 100,000 patients who make 500,000 primary care, behavioral health, oral health and social care visits each year.

Ann Marie T. Sullivan, MD has served as Commissioner for the New York State Office of Mental Health since 2014. She is responsible for implementing Governor Kathy Hochul’s landmark plan to transform the state’s mental health system and expand access to care for all New Yorkers. To date, this initiative has invested more than $2 billion into dramatically expanding services, supports, and capacity across the state.

Under Dr. Sullivan’s leadership, the mental health system in New York serves over 800,000 individuals each year and provides over 53,000 units of supportive housing for individuals living with mental illness. She has expanded preventive services for youth and families, increased the availability of treatment services across the lifespan and provided individuals living with serious mental illness the intensive supports and treatment needed to thrive in their communities.

Dr. Sullivan has focused on ensuring integrated care throughout the mental health system, addressing the stigma around mental health, fostering equity and inclusion and incorporating the presence of peers with lived experience throughout the service system. A few major initiatives during her tenure include the implementation of 988 and expansion of crisis services across the state, a focus on school based mental health services for our youth and a comprehensive engagement and housing program for individuals with serious mental illness living unsheltered in the community.

Dr. Sullivan previously served as senior vice president for the Queens Health Network of New York City Health and Hospitals, and Director of Psychiatry at Elmhurst and Queens Hospitals where she developed a comprehensive inpatient and ambulatory psychiatric service system, youth programs, substance use services, mobile outreach, and school-based programs.

A native of Queens, Dr. Sullivan graduated from New York University’s Washington Square College and it’s School of Medicine. She completed her Psychiatric Residency at New York University/Bellevue Hospital. She has taught, lectured, and published on best practices in community care and is an active advocate for her patients and her profession. 

She is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and has served as the speaker of the American Psychiatric Association’s Assembly and on its Board of Trustees. She is a clinical professor at the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, a fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine, and a member of the American College of Psychiatrists.

George Hulse is Vice President and Special Advisor to the CEO of EmblemHealth. He has dedicated much of his resources in health care to advancing Population Health; helping medically underserved communities recognize the importance of being active participants in the management and wellness of their health care – striving to ensure that immigrant communities, working class and communities of color are not victims of health disparities. 

Mr. Hulse, one of NYC’s most recognized health care leaders, has over two-decades of executive leadership in health care. He has spear-headed and organized a wide range of programs and opportunities to create local and inter-national health initiatives. He recognized the South Bronx and Central Brooklyn as underserved medical deserts and established “Healthy Villages”. Understanding our health care industries enormous resources and the positive affect we could administer beyond our borders, he helped to create 18 Health Care Missions to the Dominican Republic, 8 Health Care Missions to Haiti, as well as two missions to Puerto Rico – immediately after Hurricane Maria in 2017 and Fiona in 2022.

George was an early advocated of aligning education with health care workers as heroes – creating dozens of health care programs that acknowledged the contributions of educational workers such as parent-coordinators, school crossing-guards, school principals and others. Mr. Hulse is a well-recognized NYC health care face and voice on local radio and cable TV – he is comfortable in every healthcare setting – weather it is walking the halls of the U.S. Congress – meeting hospital Presidents – community provides or local NYCHA tenant association presidents. 

George is a former District Leader and Vice Chair of the Union County, NJ, Democratic Committee, as well as a former Delegate to the Democratic National Convention from New Jersey. He served his county with honors as a Drill Sergeant in the United States Army. 

He is a member of One Hundred Black Men of New York and the National Association of Health Services Executives as well as, a board member of the Friends of Harlem Hospital, Greater New York Chamber of Commerce, Department of Youth and Community Development (DYCD), Community Board of American Diabetes Association, Caribbean-American Chamber of Commerce, and the CaribNews Editorial Board.

During his career, George has been the recipient of many honors and awards included being the Grand Marshall of the West-Indian American Day Carnival Parade and the Bronx, Puerto Rican Parade.

Highlights of the Year

Delivered 3,145 medication dispensing services to patients with opioid use disorder through VIP’s Mobile Medication Unit (MMU) in its first year.

Secured approval from the New York State Department of Health to operate a Second-Tier Syringe Exchange Program (STSEP).

Opened a 135-bed men’s shelter in Harlem and a 65-unit supportive housing facility in the Bronx.

Assisted nearly 300 residents from our housing and shelters portfolio in securing permanent housing, achieving a recidivism rate of 1%.

Partnered with the Department of Social Services and Better Haven to acquire and open two affordable housing developments in the Bronx, totaling 125
units.

Supported 10,730 individuals in our shelters (more than a third were children).

Generated 571 mental health encounters in the school-based mental health clinic at CS44 and KIPP Freedom Middle School.

Conducted 2,695 encounters in the second year of our peer-led, community-based overdose prevention program across 17 zip codes in the Bronx, Manhattan, and Queens.

Generated over 34,000 visits at both our Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic (CCBHC) and our Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC).

Provided vocational services, including job placements, to 1,326 clients, including 746 community members, and 11 staff members.

Partnered with SBH Health System to provide mammograms to 41 women through their mobile mammography unit onsite at VIP.