The Good News – The Week of May 29th

In honor of all of the front-line workers, caring volunteers, companies that have stepped up to help and local organizations providing support, we wanted to share some of the good news with you and how your donations are being put to work. Here are some things that happened this week that give us hope.

Thanks to YOUR GENEROUS SUPPORT we have distributed $4.9M AND MUCH HOPE to over 160 LOCAL organizations

Our team is working in partnership with these agencies to closely monitor the needs of impacted individuals and families for emergency financial assistance and continue to distribute COVID-19 relief funds to meet those weekly needs and give our neighbors hope in the face of unprecedented challenges.

MAYOR WALSH ESTABLISHED THE BOSTON IMMIGRANT COVID-19 COLLABORATIVE (BICC)

As we focus on helping our communities and our economy recover from this crisis, we stand with the residents of Boston who have been on the front lines of the pandemic and who are among our most vulnerable. United Way is proud to award $100,000 to the Boston Immigrant COVID-19 Collaborative, in partnership with Mayor Walsh and the City of Boston, the Klarman Family Foundation and Open Society Foundations.  The new collaborative will support immigrant families, especially those who have not had access to as many other sources of support.  To date United Way has awarded more than $2M in funds to support organizations specifically focused on serving immigrants and newcomers. We believe everyone deserves to have hope.

United way launched the Dedham community care fund

Established by Dedham Town Manager Leon Goodwin, the Select Board and other community leaders in partnership with United Way of Massachusetts Bay, the fund will help individuals and families who have been financially impacted by this coronavirus pandemic with a focus on our most economically vulnerable neighbors. You can chip in here.

LUMA provides assistance to more than 12,000 families in Everett

Our partners at Latinos Unidos En Massachusetts have helped more than 12,000 families with groceries, money for utilities and rent, legal support, filing for unemployment, applying for utility assistance, applying for food stamps, and writing letters to show their validity to the TPS. We wanted to give them a huge round of applause for all of their diligent and dedicated work!

SEGL raised $103,000 to support kids in greater Lowell this summer

We held our first virtual event on Thursday evening to raise funds for our SEGL program – funding summer opportunities for the youth of Greater Lowell. We knew that the need this summer would be greater than ever and we want to make sure that all kids have access to remote learning opportunities that will help them avoid summer learning loss. For more information about SEGL and the event, click here.

Boston Business Journal gathers roundtable of experts to discuss Covid-19 in our community

Whether it is direct financial assistance for people who have lost jobs, food access and remote learning help for students in Boston Public Schools, or support for frontline health care workers and vulnerable populations such as immigrant workers, people and companies have overwhelmingly answered the call to help. Sponsored by PNC Bank, this philanthropy roundtable featured some of our region’s best advocates and thinkers about how we are comprehensively addressing the needs of those impacted by the crisis, including Karley Ausiello, United Way’s Senior Vice President for Community Impact, along with representatives from the City of Boston Resiliency Fund and The Boston Foundation. Take a look.

Stronger Together: Greater Attleboro Leaders

Estimating the financial impact to Attleboro non-profits could be as high as $2.5 million on top of what would be needed to help families in financial crisis, community leaders quickly mobilized to create the Greater Attleboro Stronger Together Fund. “This Fund provides us with an opportunity to address this crisis as a unified community, so we can all come out on the other side of this stronger than we were before,”  says Amanda Blount, Executive Director of The Literacy Center. The fund, seeded by lead partners United Way – thanks the Ruby and Lavon Linn Foundation – and the Lloyd G. Balfour Foundation, has already distributed $497,000 to 25 local nonprofits to help provide meals, emergency financial assistance, child care for essential workers, counseling services, unemployment assistance and more. This community-wide effort has been supported by over 500 individual donors as well as Bristol County Savings Bank and more. Read more.

And that’s your weekly dose of hope! Stop by again next week fro more.