Worcester Business Journal

64 Giving Guide 2022 Worcester Business Journal www.wbjournal.com Worcester Community Action Council, Inc. 1. Successfully welcome the public into our new office featuring improved accessibility, client-focused spaces, and enhanced opportunities for shared services. 2. Recruit and retain a diverse complement of skilled, compassionate, and dedicated employees. 3. Infuse diversity, equity and inclusion practices across services, processes, policies, and organizational culture. 4. Impact lives through quality care and services. 5. Build upon our Resiliency Center as a gateway for clients and a more direct avenue to financial empowerment. 6. Reimagine our Job & Education Center as a strengthened pathway to post-secondary education and year-round employment opportunities. 7. Pilot enhanced and expanded access to our early education and care programs with extended-day opportunities for working families. 8. Apply a client-centered approach to our work that influences decision making processes across programs, people and physical space, policies, procedures, use of technology and points of access. Marybeth Campbell Executive Director Karen L. Rucks- Walker, ThD Vice Chair MISSION STATEMENT SERVICE AREA: WCAC serves the City of Worcester and 45 surrounding communities in Central and Southern Massachusetts. WCAC's values of advancing equitable access, elevating all voices, and partnering with people are embedded in the role we play as the federally-designated anti-poverty agency for Central and South-Central Massachusetts. WCAC embodies service to the community through our Mission: Helping people move to economic self-sufficiency through programs, partnerships, and advocacy. Federal Funding ................... 78% State/Local Government ........ 9% Other/Earned Revenue ......... 13% TOP FUNDING SOURCES: Donald G. Xenos, Chair Karen Rucks-Walker, ThD, Vice Chair Steven Desmarais, Treasurer Brian Westerlind, Asst. Treasurer Donna Lombardi, MEd, R.D., Clerk Eve Gilmore, Asst. Clerk Dale Allen, PhD Leslie Baker Eric Batista Kathryn Crockett Arianna Curet Marco Estrella Worcester Community Action Council, Inc. 18 Chestnut Street, Suite 500 Worcester, MA 01608 Phone: 508-754-1176 www. WCAC.net Full-time employees: 120 Annual revenues: $23,000,000 Year founded: 1965 BOARD OF DIRECTORS FUTURE GOALS • WCAC hosts an Annual Appeal in November and a Spring Appeal held in May in conjunction with Community Action Month, seeking financial donations to support and sustain the agency's programs and services throughout the year. Donations accepted year-round at www.WCAC.net or by mail to WCAC, 18 Chestnut Street, Suite 500, Worcester, MA 01608. • New partners sought to provide professional workshops, mentoring as well as summer and year-round employment opportunities for young adults through our Job & Education Center's (JEC) Job One youth workforce initiative. • Private donations to WCAC's Emergency Fuel Fund provide critical support for income eligible households right in your backyard, facing no-heat emergencies during cold winter months. • Donations of breakfast, lunch and snack options, gift cards and bus passes accepted for young adults enrolled in the JEC, many of whom experience food insecurity and face significant barriers to education and employment. • Head Start/Early Head Start and Healthy Families programs accept donations of school supplies and books for infants through age 5. Healthy Families also accepts new or gently worn infant and toddler clothing for its Baby Boutique. • Volunteers are needed as tax preparers from January through April for the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program in which income-eligible residents have their income taxes prepared and filed at no cost. WCAC operates VITA in both Worcester and Southbridge. Training for the IRS certification takes place in December FUNDRAISING & GIVING OPPORTUNITIES VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES POST-PANDEMIC: WCAC partners with thousands of low and low-to-moderate income individuals and households each year for whom COVID exacerbated their vulnerabilities and widened economic and public health gaps. While the transition to opportunities for online applications, virtual and remote services, and self-service stations is helpful for many, we look forward to safely welcoming the public into our new office space as well as expanding our ability to meet clients where they are with 'mobile office' and community outreach opportunities "For almost 60 years WCAC has had a positive and productive impact on the quality of life for individuals, children, and families. As the region's anti-poverty agency, WCAC forms strategic partnerships intended to promote economic mobility opportunities such as helping youth overcome the effects of poverty and to prepare them for academic success. The fuel assistance and weatherization programs enable our neighbors, especially our seniors and veterans, to remain in their home. Their mission of helping people achieve economic self-sufficiency aligns with my personal and professional values, for which I am proud to be a part." – Karen L. Rucks-Walker, ThD, Vice Chair Maricelis Gonzalez Kristen Lemire Peter Martin, Esq. Gladys Rodriguez-Parker Janice Ryan Weekes

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