This summer, Home City Development residents, both youth and adults, have been actively building community and participating in programming to make strides towards their career and financial goals. Adult residents have been involved in parenting and financial workshops. And resident teens have been working in the HMR offices, and assisting with the summer youth programs as part of their summer employment.
Our Liberty community center has been an effective summer youth learning space, for HCDI residents and children from the surrounding neighborhood. In the 4H club STEM classes, elementary age kids learned about mechanical engineering. Using materials like popsicle sticks and cotton balls, they designed a container that would keep an egg safe, simulating a package of food released from a spaceship.
Over at our Bay Street Community Resource Center, Families First hosted a Power of Parenting workshop series, their first program in Western Massachusetts, expanding from the eastern part of the state. HCDI parents, as well as parents from the surrounding community attended to learn and connect. HMR provided child-care and dinner, and Families First provided the programming.
For Edwina D Woods, a Twiggs II resident, the Families First program was all about community, “This program has allowed families who probably wouldn’t get together on a regular basis, to get together,” she said, “We’re welcome to just be real and open … we have a safe place that I think parents don’t have in the community.”
Israel Rivera, Program Manager for Families First, said that this workshop is a seed to strengthen community and build a network of parents and families who will eventually support each other in their neighborhoods.
Girls Inc also held a program at our Bay Street Center this summer. Both HCDI residents as well as surrounding neighborhood girls were welcome to attend. In these in-depth programs, the girls learned to value their wholeness, and receive the support they need to navigate the challenges they face in every-day life.
Financial Self Sufficiency was another 8-week adult summer program culminating in a beautiful graduation ceremony at the Springfield Sheraton. A Liberty resident said that she appreciated this type of support, being a young mother on her own. She never had anyone to explain these financial ins and outs to her growing up. “They’re teaching us to be structured … to have a plan, stick to it, be dedicated to it, like a job … Some people don’t ever get the help, and they’re just lost forever.” Everything that she learned in this program helped to lay the foundation for her plans to buy a house once the market is right. This course was a boost to get there.
All summer, residents have been connecting and building community, and learning valuable skills to lay the groundwork for growth and success, working hard and surrounding themselves with people and programs that help to facilitate positive change.