‘Bringing the Community Together to Help People’s Greatest Needs’.

More than 650,000 people in Massachusetts have filed for unemployment benefits in the past five weeks as local businesses continue to be impacted severely by the coronavirus pandemic. Lora Sabin, associate professor of global health, is part of a local foundation in Watertown, Mass. that is helping to ease the financial hardship that many families are experiencing as a result of this public health crisis.

Sabin is on the board of directors for the Watertown Community Foundation, which created a Community Resilience Fund that has raised more than $70,000 to respond to the emergency needs of hundreds of local families.

The foundation launched the fund on March 21, and the fund grew to more than $60,000 in less than a week, Sabin says, thanks in part to more than 100 individual donors in the community.

“This is a true example of how a community can come together,” says Sabin. “It is so meaningful to be part of an activity where we’re bringing the community together to help people’s greatest needs. I feel really lucky to be a part of this organization.”

To streamline donations and identify where the needs are most immediate, the foundation comprised a committee consisting of Watertown community partners, including representatives from Community Development & Planning, Wayside Youth & Family Support Network, the police department, the school district, and the Housing Authority.

So far, the most critical need is food, especially for families with children who rely on school meals for daily nourishment. Like schools throughout the Commonwealth, Watertown public schools will remain closed for the rest of the 2019-2020 school year. The foundation donated a major portion of the funds to the Catholic Coalition Food Pantry in Watertown, and, through Wayside, secured grocery store gift cards for more than 100 families.

“The need for food is huge,” says Sabin. “I was volunteering yesterday at a food distribution center and it was sad to see how long the lines were.”

Since it was founded in 2003, the Watertown Community Foundation has awarded more than $1,000,000 in grants for a wide range of programs and projects in Watertown. Sabin has been a board member since 2011, and has spearheaded the foundation’s high school internship grant program, which offers stipends to high school students living in Watertown to complete a summer internship for 20 hours of voluntary work per week, for at least six weeks. The foundation approved funding for up to 15 students for internships this summer and is working to connect them to volunteer opportunities that can be completed remotely.

—Jillian McKoy