The June 2021 CWS Newsletter is available here. Read about our partnership with Finesse Hospitality; meet our new team members Nicole Stewart, Joseph Rios, and Craig Jones; and hear from Jose Gonzalez, our latest participant success story.
The May 2021 CWS Newsletter is available here. Read more about our work to address food insecurity, our partnership with Mount Auburn Hospital, and the story of Gio, one of our Culinary Arts Training Program participants who has landed a job at Mount Auburn Hospital.
The April 2021 CWS Newsletter is available here. Read about our New Program, the HOPES Initiative; our partnership with Block by Block serving Boston’s downtown area; and a participant success story.
Throughout its 143-year history, Community Work Services has addressed the roots of poverty through employment, education, and housing improvements. Today CWS is bringing that same vision to bear on the crisis of homelessness and food insecurity caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
CWS’ recent Double Impact Initiative with Breaktime, a youth-led nonprofit and social enterprise, has a twofold purpose– to help young adult homeless acquire job skills and economic stability, and to create meals for first responders and food-insecure participants in Boston-area communities in crisis.
The partnership has already had an impact, hiring and training 10 young adults experiencing homelessness, most of whom are people of color, and producing nearly 30,000 meals, mainly for communities of color such as Everett, Chelsea, Dorchester, and Roxbury. The program aims to serve people experiencing homelessness, first responders, senior citizens, and individuals with disabilities to ensure that everyone has access to the nutrition they need during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The need is acute. Amid a nationwide surge in food insecurity, one in seven residents and one in five children in Massachusetts will experience food insecurity, the second highest rate in the nation for increased risk of food insecurity among children.
CWS has also launched 10 new nonprofit partnerships to map out food insecurity and young adult homelessness in neighborhoods across Boston, and strengthened its focus on the intersections between race, homelessness, hunger, and unemployment.
The Double Impact Initiative is part of Rising to the Challenge, an initiative launched by the City of Boston in November 2019 to prevent and end youth and young adult homelessness. It is funded by the Boston Resiliency Fund, which coordinates fundraising and efforts to provide essential services to city residents who are most impacted by the coronavirus pandemic and by MassHire Metro North Workforce Board that supports youth career and training services with funds from the U.S. Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA).
“CWS has always been devoted to helping individuals achieve a level of financial security and economic wellbeing through employment,” said Craig Stenning, CWS Executive Director. “We are incredibly grateful to have received support from the City of Boston’s Resiliency Fund.”
Employees of Community Work Services Total Facilities Management (TFM) division are providing essential services critical to the operations of state and federal facilities amid the current COVID-19 pandemic.
TFM provides highly specialized facilities maintenance services. From managing facilities through various technologies, to daily executions of a wide variety a services, such as Janitorial, Mechanical Maintenance, Landscaping and Grounds, Recycling and Waste Management, and all other building related functions and services that meet the challenges of today’s high-functioning facility demands. For over 50 years, TFM has been an integral part of offering services that are critical to today’s highly efficient and demanding facilities where services are measured in reliability, responsiveness, and corporate partnerships as standard business principles.
As it relates to preventing the spread of the Coronavirus, CWS has systematically responded to service requests across a vast array of facilities, many of which include cleaning and sanitizing high-contact surfaces. Concurrently, we have implemented our Pandemic Preparedness Plan, a highly detailed strategy specifically designed to provide essential services during a pandemic. To note, the plan provides information that will ensure compliance with the requirements of the Federal OSHA Directive 3327-02N 2007 to develop plans for keeping government facilities operational during a pandemic influenza or other emergency periods. The plan adheres to OSHA standard 1926.59, The Hazmat Communication Standard (HCS).
Some final quick tips recommended by CDC:
The October 2019 CWS Newsletter is available here. Read more about Success Stories, the Power of Networking, upcoming job fairs, and the CWS Job Club.
The September 2019 CWS Newsletter is available here. Read more about Success Stories, the Power of Networking, and upcoming job fairs.
The July 2019 CWS Newsletter is available here. Read more about Success Stories, the Power of Networking, upcoming job fairs, and the CWS Job Club.
