Charitable Contributions for 2023
$11,482 to Arc of the South Shore, a Weymouth-based agency that provides services for children and adults with cognitive, physical and other intellectual and developmental disabilities. Many of the individuals they serve have employment as a goal but need support, instruction and skills training in order to get and maintain a job. The Arc offers skills development activities and classes in a program they call Pathways to Employment. It aims to strengthen participants’ communication and social skills, in addition to providing meaningful workforce training and support. Our grant was used to support this program by expanding its farmers market initiative and creating an online store for participants to sell their handmade goods to a wider audience.
$2,092 to Artists for Humanity. Since 1991 this South Boston organization has worked to provide under-resourced teens with the keys to self-sufficiency through art and design. Through its after-school and Summer programs AFH annually employs 370+ Boston teens in paid apprenticeship in the visual arts and creative industries. These youth are given the opportunity to work in one of six creative studios, and work collaboratively with professional artists and designers to earn and learn new skills. Our grant to AFH was used to purchase a cordless track saw and a vacuum press kit for their 3D Design Studio to help improve safety and expand capabilities. It was our first grant to AFH, but we do not think it will be our last.
$757 to Boston Arts Academy Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit that assists Boston Arts Academy (BAA) in obtaining grants to support and strengthen its programs. BAA is the city’s only public high school for the visual and performing arts, and for over 25 years it has fostered student achievement through an arts-intensive and college preparatory curriculum. Theater students learn the safe use of hand and power tools in BAA’s Scene Shop, where they are taught by a professional scenic designer and build sets and props for the school’s productions. Our grant was used to purchase tools for this scene shop.
$3,509 to Boston Higashi School, a Randolph non-profit serving children and young adults with autism deficit disorder. In its commitment to help students reach their full potential, the school uses a broad and balanced curriculum. It includes a vocational element that begins at the Junior High level with an emphasis on soft skills such as following directions and developing a sense of responsibility, and continues into High School with practical employment training to best prepare them for life upon graduation. Our grant this year was used for equipment to support three of the school’s vocational initiatives, with the bulk used to purchase a heat press and two cutter machines to expand the capabilities of Higashi’s very successful Heat Press and Design program.
$8,299 to Cape Cod Makers, which is located in the Harwich Cultural Center, and whose purpose is to educate and provide access to equipment and tools for charitable, cultural and educational purposes. It enables students and adults from the Cape Cod community to learn about and use tools that they might not otherwise be able to afford or access. Those tools include 3D printers, laser cutters, CNC routers, soldering stations and computers, while our grant was used to purchase an Ultimaker S7 3D printer that will expand the range of projects they can undertake and the educational opportunities they can provide.
$4,371 to Cardinal Cushing Centers, which since 1947 have provided innovative approaches to education for thousands of children with intellectual disabilities. One of Cushing’s most successful training programs is their culinary arts program, which is based in their Hanover facility and operates at both their main kitchen where meals are prepared and served to staff and students, and at their Cushing Cafe in the new MarketPlace which is open to the public. These programs have proved to be very successful, both in terms of student interest and in securing competitive employment for the students. This year’s MCMA grant was used to purchase and equip a Beverage Service Cart that will enable Cafe students to deliver coffee and baked goods for sale to Cushing’s other buildings, and to replace for the Culinary kitchen a 25-year old milk chest
$15,547 to Carroll Center for the Blind in Newton. For over 75 years this organization has worked effectively with those with vision loss, helping them to learn the skills needed to be independent in their homes, classrooms and workplaces. Technology features into all of Carroll’s programming, from summer training for teens to comprehensive job training for adults looking to return to work after vision loss. All require training on up-to-date technologies, and MCMA’s grant was used to provide key technology upgrades for Carroll’s direct service programs and their instructional staff.
$3,713 to CCC/Beverly School for the Deaf in Beverly. Founded in 1876 to serve deaf and hard of hearing children, this school expanded its mission in the 1970s and began accepting hearing children with communication challenges and deaf children with learning and developmental disabilities. Our grant this year enabled the purchase of a Mobile Lift to help move students from wheelchairs to other settings with minimal effort. Lifts are designed to alleviate the weight load, and so reduce the chance of injury to both student and staff.
$10,561 to Challenge Unlimited, which uses therapeutic horseback riding at its Ironstone Farm in Andover to benefit children with a wide range of physical, emotional and cognitive disabilities. Their programs also serve a range of individuals that include veterans with PTSD, teens at risk, adults with disabilities, people in recovery from addiction, and many others. While our past support has focussed mainly on saddles and riding equipment, Ironstone’s pressing needs this year were repairs (siding, flooring, windows, etc.) to its deteriorating main barn. Our grant was used to help purchase materials for this effort, with students from Greater Lawrence Technical School providing supervised labor and gaining on-site, hands-on learning experience.
$10,346 to Dearborn Academy, which in 2017 had to relocate from its historic location in Arlington to a newly renovated facility in Newton, necessitating a complete make over of its shop programs. Students at this special education day school arrive with a variety of concerns that include impulse-control, learning disabilities and mental health issues. Dearborn considers vocational and shop programs to be vital to their success with these children, and our grant was used to continue the upgrade and expansion of their shop programs, this year with a focus on the ceramics program, the horticultural program, and safety (hearing protection, fire blankets, and replacement of worn tools) across multiple programs.
$3,450 to Double Edge Theater Productions, a non-profit founded in 1982 and located in Ashfield. This organization creates original theater works while also training and teaching emerging artists and interns, and the students learn all aspects of production and design, such as lighting, props, costumes and set pieces. Further, Double Edge has an ongoing partnership with the Springfield School District, through which many students from economically disadvantaged households are afforded an opportunity for high-quality creative and professional training that they might not otherwise see. This year’s grant was used to purchase equipment and tools for the Costumes department, and a chop saw.
$20,099 to the Eliot School in Jamaica Plain, which has for many years offered quality education to day and evening school students in a variety of fine and applied arts, and has more recently introduced a School Partnership Program that brings woodworking and art to more than 1300 students in the Boston Public School system. Eliot’s programs were crippled by the Covid shutdown, but they have now largely recovered. Our grant this year was used to purchase tools and equipment for Eliot’s Upholstery and Woodworking programs. The most significant purchases were sewing machines and a desktop CNC router.
$10,547 to the Essex Historical Society and Shipbuilding Museum, which since 1993 has been introducing students from Essex and surrounding communities to carpentry and boat building through the construction of small rowing craft. Through partnerships with local schools the museum works with small groups to build boats, make tholepins, grommets and oars to row with, and even learn how to row the boats on the Essex River. Our grant was used to purchase power and hand tools to support this program, with a Sawstop cabinet saw the most significant purchase.
$15,006 to the Gloucester Marine Genomics Institute, which operates the Gloucester Biotechnology Academy. Designed to serve local high school graduates ages 18 to 26 with limited resources and no clear path to college or a career, the Academy’s hands-on technical training offers these young people a STEM pathway to meaningful jobs in a growing industry. Its “lab immersion” curriculum includes two semesters spent learning biotech workflow and methods, and a third on a paid industry internship at a biotech firm or research institute. The success of this program led GMGI to expand it with the addition of a biomanufacturing training facility in 2021. Very specialized laboratory equipment is needed for these programs, and this year’s MCMA grant was used to purchase a Spectrophotometer and an Ni-NTA Agarose.
$9,048 to the Home for Little Wanderers to support the recently re-opened Carpentry program at their Southeast Campus in Plymouth. Children at this campus have been removed from their families due to neglect and abuse, and most are behavioral and moderately learning disabled. Knowing that many of these children will not return to their families but will transition to group homes or to independent living, The Home tries to introduce these children to real-life work experiences and skills through various programs. The Carpentry program had been closed since Covid, and our grant was used for multiple power and hand tools that will help the school rebuild it.
$9,453 to the Hull Lifesaving Museum (HLM), which operates two facilities in Hull and a third on the downtown Boston waterfront. HLM offers a variety of history, cultural and art based programs, as well as open-water rowing and learning programs for both children and adults. Our support, though, was directed toward the Maritime Apprentice Program at HLM’s Windmill Point Boathouse in Hull. This program, formerly housed on the South Boston waterfront, introduces both youths and adults to the maritime industry and a wide range of skills and activities designed to pique their interests in maritime careers. Our grant was used for boat-building tools and materials to support the hands-on, skill-based training and work readiness preparation that this program provides.
$6,000 to Lovelane, a Lincoln nonprofit that provides high-quality therapeutic horseback riding in a supportive environment to achieve occupational, physical, cognitive and other therapeutic gains, focusing on children with special needs. It is recognized and regularly recommended by the Boston pediatric medical community for treatment of a wide variety of medical diagnoses. With its staff of 21 and the help of 215 dedicated volunteers they provide 4500 therapeutic sessions each year. Therapy horses are Love Lane’s primary therapeutic tools, and with our grant this year Lovelane purchased a therapy horse to replace a horse that had to be retired due to age.
$2,120 to Lowell’s Boat Shop & Museum in Amesbury, the oldest operating boat shop in America, and the sole survivor of the area’s renowned dory manufacturing industry. Established in 1793, Lowell’s works to preserve and perpetuate the art and craft of wooden boatbuilding, teaching woodworking, boatbuilding, finishing, engine maintenance and repair, etc. to a broad range of young people and adults, and engaging a very active group of volunteers. Lowell’s uses many hand tools and smaller power tools that occasionally (after much hard use) require replacement, and MCMA’s grant was used for that purpose.
$10,500 to the MassBay Foundation, Our support was directed toward MBCC’s Automotive Technology Center (ATC), which operates at the Ashland campus and has very successfully trained hundreds of Massachusetts residents for jobs in automotive fields. The ATC’s training programs are sponsored by four major automobile brands, and provide students with in-depth automotive technology training, utilizing state-of-the-art diagnostic equipment on manufacturer-donated, late model vehicles. Our grant helped ATC purchase a Road Force Elite Wheel Balancer that will replace a 20-year old unit and will further align their automotive training with industry standards and improve students’ technical skills.
$4,921 to May Institute in Randolph, a nationally-recognized organization that provides educational and rehabilitative services for children and adults with autism and other special needs. Vocational programs are key components at each of May’s five schools. For its older students (age 14-21) May creates work environments that model real-life work environments and give students the opportunity to practice a variety of job readiness skills within the school setting. Our grant was used to purchase equipment for vocational programs at the Randolph school (a commercial refrigerator) and the Wilmington school (a service checkout counter, cash register, bar code scanner, etc.).
$10,000 to National Braille Press in Boston. Founded over 85 years ago, this organization promotes and nurtures the Braille literacy of blind children and youth, and prints and publishes reading materials that blind people of all ages need to fully pursue their goals in education, work and life. With our help NBP was able to purchase a Viewplus Elite Braille Embosser, a high-speed, high-quality embosser that will enable NBP to keep pace with their current production of Braille materials.
$1,722 to New England Village (NEV) in Pembroke, which serves individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities — including people on the autism spectrum, people with Down syndrome, and people who have sensory disabilities. NEV has had a long affiliation with Colchester Neighborhood Farm in Plympton, which has offered integrated work opportunities for the individuals served in NEV’s Employment Services program. Our grant was used to build raised planting bed tables, which provide access for people using wheelchairs, and the work was performed by students from the South Shore Technical High School through their carpentry program.
$2,780 to Newhall Fields Community Farm in Peabody, a non-profit, direct-to-consumer urban farm that engages community members through volunteering, internships and youth programs to grow, harvest and distribute produce to food-insecure families on the North Shore. (Newhall Fields is also a weekly job training site for 12 Northeast Arc clients and their staff leaders.) Our grant was used to purchase heating and ventilation equipment to regulate the temperature in their new hoop house, which is similar to a greenhouse and will be used to extend the growing season.
$16,000 to North Bennet Street School, which very successfully helps students to achieve meaningful livelihoods by offering intense, hands-on training in traditional trades and fine craftsmanship. MCMA has been a long-time supporter of this school in Boston’s North End, and this year our support was directed specifically to their program in Locksmithing & Security Technology. This industry has been moving rapidly towards “electronic access control”, with technologies such as key pads, key cards, facial recognition, thumb print recognition, fobs, etc., and NBSS needed to incorporate such technology into their curriculum. Our grant (for computer hardware, software, card readers, cameras, etc) will help them get there.
$9,524 to Northeast Arc of Danvers, which provides employment opportunities for people with disabilities and serves as a pathway for them to obtain competitive jobs within the community. Our grant was used to purchase equipment for its very successful Heritage Shredding business, which provides a solution for the safe destruction of personal or company confidential documents. Services include delivery and pick-up of locked bins, shredding of documents, Proof-of-Tracking, and processing shredded paper into pulp for recycling. Importantly, this enables the employment of 25 individuals, 20 of whom have disabilities, and as Heritage continues to grow this business, increasing volume and adding new customers, that growth will them to add new employees as well.
$15,279 to North River Collaborative which serves special needs high school and middle school students from over two dozen South Shore cities and towns at its North River School in Rockland, Its curriculum includes a vocational component, which the school believes has helped students develop good work attitudes, habits and social skills in addition to learning specific employability skills, and MCMA has supported this initiative for many years. With our grant this year the school purchased for the Culinary Arts Program a dishwasher, and for the STEM-oriented Innovation Studio Program a number of items (including a TECH CNC Router and a MAKERBOT Replicator) aimed at teaching students to solve open-ended problems by creating and testing their own models and prototypes.
$5,588 to Road to Responsibility, a Marshfield organization that annually serves over 1300 individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities from all over the South Shore. In addition to its residential services and daytime social and therapeutic services, RTR offers Employment Services to help individuals find employment through community-based vocational training, helping them to prepare for, secure, and maintain their employment. It is this program to which our grant (for laptops and software) was directed.
$5,578 to the Waldorf School of Cape Cod, an independent school in Sandwich, Massachusetts offering a nursery-level to grade-8 education as well as a variety of parent-child programs. In addition to academics the Waldorf curriculum encourages self-confidence and self-reliance, so energetic physical activity and participation in fiber arts, gardening, or crafts is a part of each school day. MCMA’s 2022 grant was used to help build a permanent, outdoor structure for the school’s very popular woodworking program. This year’s grant was used to purchase a portable chain sawmill that will be used to harvest on-site timber to be used for outdoor projects and give the kids a fuller appreciation for the wood they use in the items they build.
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