ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- Excellus BlueCross BlueShield is giving back to the community. The organization held its annual Community Health Awards at the Rochester Boys and Girls Club Thursday. 

Out of two hundred applicants, only nine Monroe County-based nonprofits received money from Excellus to fund health and wellness programs.

The Boys and Girls Club was one of those organizations. The group says it'll use its $4,000 award to help fund a new initiative: giving children who’ve undergone trauma the right support. 

"We would like to bring mental health and social work services into the Boys and Girls Club and have it readily available," said executive director Dwayne Mahoney, "We think it will help our kids when they want to talk about specific situations and help our staff in terms of putting a plan together for each individual kid." 

The other eight winners are listed below.

• Borinquen Dance Theatre, Inc.: $3,500 to use dance as a way to help disadvantaged students from Monroe and surrounding counties attain academic success and learn self-discipline, teamwork and leadership skills. 

• Child Care Council, Inc.: $4,000 to help fund its Asthma Friendly Child Care Endorsement initiative, which trains child care programs in Monroe, Wayne and Livingston counties on ways to safely provide care to children with asthma.

• Foodlink: $4,000 to help create a safe and inviting play space next to its Lexington Avenue Urban Farm in the Edgerton neighborhood of northwest Rochester. The play space will serve the children of the community, many of whom are refugees who tend to the community garden.

• Mental Health Association: $2,500 for a pilot program in Monroe County that will help those with a mental illness who have been unemployed for more than a year build the skills needed to stay employed for the long-term.

• RESOLVE of Greater Rochester: $2,500 to plan, coordinate and deliver a one-day intensive training about intimate partner violence to health professionals during domestic violence awareness month in October.

• Samaritan Center of Excellence: $1,000 to provide alcohol and substance abuse recovery and life skills classes to 30 African American, low-income women from Monroe County.  

• Spiritus Christi Prison Outreach: $4,000 for wellness education for those in Monroe and Orleans counties who were incarcerated and have since transitioned to independent housing. The program will help them decrease stress and their cravings for drugs and alcohol while boosting their confidence and self-worth.

• Willow Domestic Violence Center: $2,000 for bus and cab fare to help its emergency shelter residents access health care services. Many of its residents suffer from serious injuries, such as burns and broken bones, or untreated chronic illnesses.  

Other Finger Lakes region winners include CASA of Livingston County, which received $4,000 for an after school program for teens; and the Lyons Central School District, which received $4,000 for a youth mental health first aid program.

Overall, 36 organizations from across upstate New York earned Community Health Awards totaling $110,500.