Nonprofits Win Cummings Grants, Mobile Farmers Market, and More!
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Somerville Nonprofits Win Cummings $100K Grants
Five Somerville-based community organizations were among the 140 Boston-area nonprofits to receive grants of $100,000 to $500,000 each through Cummings Foundation’s $25 Million Grant Program last month. The organizations were chosen from a total of 580 applicants during a competitive review process.
The Welcome Project, which offers programming for working class immigrant youth, adults, and families, will receive $100,000 over three years. The organization, which is based at Somerville’s Mystic Public Housing Development, will use this funding to build an economic development program that will help local immigrant-owned businesses by providing mentorship and technical assistance. TWP will partner with the City of Somerville’s Office of Immigrant Affairs and Office of Racial and Social Justice to provide workshops and drop-in clinic hours to immigrant business owners to help them navigate processes such as licensing, loan applications, business plans, compliance with regulatory requirements, and other challenges they may be facing.
“The Cummings Foundation support is crucial to helping TWP and its partners launch a wide-reaching needs assessment with local immigrant entrepreneurs and better understand their needs in order to develop the programming, services, and organizational capacity to effectively respond to these needs,” said Andrea Duarte, Development Associate at TWP.
In addition to The Welcome Project, this year’s other Somerville-based $100,000 grant recipients are:
Boston Landmarks Orchestra – to provide an opportunity for older adults suffering from memory loss and dementia to experience a bit of joy and respite with familiar music.
Somerville Community Corporation – to provide low-income individuals with job readiness training and financial literacy programming to help them find good local jobs and sustainable financial security.
Somerville Public Schools – to provide differently abled students with adaptive physical education opportunities as well as social/emotional skill development through adventure-based education programming.
In addition, Cambridge Health Alliance Foundation was awarded $500,000 to develop a Career Pathways Program for immigrant youths and youths of color by providing mentoring, health career exposure, and economic empowerment.
The Cummings $25 Million Grant Program supports Massachusetts nonprofits that primarily serve populations in Middlesex, Essex, and Suffolk counties. Cummings Foundation has now awarded more than $375 million to Greater Boston nonprofits. The complete list of this year’s 140 grant winners, plus more than 900 previous recipients, is available at www.CummingsFoundation.org.
Mobile Farmers Market Available at Four Locations Weekly
From Asian eggplant to zucchini, the Somerville Mobile Farmers Market offers a wide variety of fresh local produce. The mobile market is available to all, now through Oct. 15.
The market schedule is: Fridays 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. at the Council on Aging/SCALE (167 Holland St.); Fridays 2:30-4:30 p.m. at the East Somerville Community School (50 Cross St.); Saturdays 10-11:30 a.m. at North Street Housing (24 North St.); and Saturdays 1:30-3 p.m. at Mystic Housing (in the playground between 15B and 25B Memorial Rd.).
The market accepts cash, debit, credit, SNAP, WIC Farmers Market Coupons, and Senior Farmers Market Coupons, and it offers an unlimited 50 percent discount for anyone who needs it. All are welcome.
For more assistance putting food on your table, the Somerville Food Security Coalition can help you find food pantries, free community meals, meal planning tips, and more.
Have a Yart Sale!
“Think of a yard sale but with ART!” The Somerville Arts Council is organizing a city-wide Yart Sale. Residents are invited to showcase their art, from the comfort of their yards, driveways, and porches.
Yart Sale will take place on Saturday, Aug. 13 from noon to 6 p.m.; rain date is Sunday, Aug. 14. Participants can choose what time they want to show their work. Participating times will be listed on the website.
To participate, you must upload your information to a Google form (applicants will be required to sign into their Google Drive account). The deadline to sign up is Monday, Aug. 3 at 11:59 p.m. No new sign-ups will be allowed after that date. A map for attendees will be published on Aug. 10.
Examples of things that can be displayed:
- Any art medium (paintings, photography, collage, sculptures)
- Handmade objects (jewelry, pottery, quilts, knitted items)
- Art tools, supplies, books
- Family artwork (children wanting to sell their artwork)
- Collectible items (coins, postcards, baseball cards, instruments, magnets)
- Plants
- Musician merchandise (T-shirts, CDs, etc.)
Please note the following conditions for participants:
- No sidewalks should be blocked. No tables or artwork can be set up blocking streets or sidewalks. Everything needs to remain on your private property.
- No live music.
- No food or pastries for sale.
- This is a Somerville event; only Somerville addresses will be included.
Photo Credit: The Welcome Project celebrates receiving a Cummings Foundation grant. Photo courtesy of The Welcome Project.
This article is syndicated by the Somerville Wire municipal news service of the Somerville News Garden project of the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism.
All Somerville Wire articles may be republished by community news outlets free of charge with permission and by larger commercial news outlets for a fee. Republication requests and all other inquiries should be directed to somervillewire@binjonline.org. Somerville Wire articles are also syndicated by BINJ’s MassWire state news service at masswire.news.
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Linda Pinkow is a reporter for the Somerville Wire. She is also a development consultant for the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism.
