WORCESTER, Mass. – Gov. Maura Healey was in Worcester Monday morning to announce nearly $1.5 million in summer safety funding through the “Safer Communities” initiative.

Healey, joined by local public safety leaders, made the announcement at the Boys and Girls Club of Worcester. She said the state has invested the funds to support violence prevention, response and community engagement efforts through the summer and fall months, when violent crime is often at its peak.

The initiative requires district attorney’s offices to dedicate half of their awarded funds to projects aimed at prevention, intervention and/or diversion programming. The remainder of the funds are intended to support enforcement and prosecution.

"We learned so much more about trauma now, it's crazy that we didn't deal with this in a different way before,” Worcester County DA Joseph Early Jr. said. “High ACA scores almost guarantee that 60% of those kids are going to be involved in the criminal justice system or are going to have a substance use disorder problem. We can make it better, and that's just what you're doing, governor, by giving us this money."

"Gang violence, violence in general isn't something that you're just going to wave a wand and it's just going to go away,” Massachusetts Secretary of Public Safety Terrence Reidy said. “You got to keep banging away at it. The people in this room, the DAs, the community partners, they're the ones that know better than anybody else."

Healey said the program has been a success in previous years. Between July and December of 2022, grant-funded enforcement efforts resulted in the removal of 95 illegally possessed firearms from Massachusetts communities and the seizure of approximately 44,000 grams of heroin and fentanyl.