The Care Center Annual Report Fiscal Year 2021

the care center is a place of expansion for women where a love of learning is restored where women can explore and understand their true capacity where women learn to succeed or fail and rise again where hope is alive and possibility glimmers on the horizon the care center is a place of expansion for women where a love of learning is restored where women can explore and understand their true capacity where women learn to succeed or fail and rise again where hope is alive and possibility glimmers on the horizon the care center is a place of expansion for women where a love of learning is restored where women can explore and understand their true capacity where women learn to succeed or fail and rise again where hope is alive and possibility glimmers on the horizon the care center is a place of expansion for women where a love of learning is restored where women can explore and understand their true capacity where women learn to succeed or fail and rise again where hope is alive and possibility glimmers on the horizon the care center is a place of expansion for women where a love of learning is restored where women can explore and understand their true capacity where women learn to succeed or fail and rise again where hope is alive and possibility glimmers on the horizon the care center is a place of expansion for women where a love of learning is restored where women can explore and understand their true capacity where women learn to succeed or fail and rise again where hope is alive and possibility glimmers on the horizon the care center is a place of expansion for women where a love of learning is restored where women can explore and understand their true capacity where women learn to succeed or fail and rise again where hope is alive and possibility glimmers on the horizon the care center is a place of expansion for women where a love of learning is restored where women can explore and understand their true capacity where women learn to succeed or fail and rise again where hope is alive and possibility glimmers on the horizon the care center is a place of expansion for women where a love of learning is restored where women can explore and understand their true capacity where women learn to succeed or fail and rise again where hope is alive and possibility glimmers on the horizon the care center is a place of expansion for women where a love of learning is restored where women can explore and understand their true capacity where women learn to succeed or fail and rise again where hope is alive and possibility glimmers on the horizon the care center is a place of expansion for women where a love of learning is restored where women can explore and understand their true capacity where women learn to succeed or fail and rise again where hope is alive and possibility glimmers on the horizon the care center is a place of expansion for women where a love of learning is restored where women can explore and understand their true capacity where women learn to succeed or fail and rise again where hope is alive and possibility glimmers on the horizon the care center is a place of expansion for women where a love of learning is restored where women can explore and understand their true capacity where women learn to succeed or fail and rise again where hope is alive and possibility glimmers on the horizon the care center is a place of expansion for women where a love of learning is restored where women can explore and understand their true capacity where women learn to succeed or fail and rise again where hope is alive and possibility glimmers on the horizon the care center is a place of expansion for women where a love of learning is restored where women can explore and understand their true capacity where women learn to succeed or fail and rise again where hope is alive and possibility glimmers on the horizon

The Care Center is an education and cultural center that spans early education to college completion. Since opening its doors in 1986, The Care Center has worked with young mothers and their families as they continue their education and move toward greater self-awareness and economic self-sufficiency. The Care Center has provided support, education, culture, inspiration and high expectations to more than 4,000 young women and their families in the Holyoke area, helping them to get back on track educationally and economically.

This was a year like no other for the world and for The Care Center. The pandemic pushed us to places we did not necessarily want to go but we met the challenges presented. With the support of the community and the commitment of staff, board, and students, we remained organizationally strong and weathered the storm.

The Care Center was able to remain fully staffed and operational throughout the pandemic. Our counselors addressed students’ varied needs, which ranged from isolation, homelessness, and domestic violence to help with college applications and questions about the vaccine. We sent care packages to all Care Center students throughout the pandemic as a way to stay connected during this difficult and isolating time. Care packages included toys, food, flowers, chocolate, journals, art supplies, study materials, poetry books, and personal items like masks, hand sanitizer, and soaps.

The faculty offered a combination of virtual and in-person learning. All students were given Chromebooks and internet access, which allowed them to continue with their studies. We welcomed visiting poets and authors and we rowed on the Connecticut River. We celebrated as 12 women earned their HiSET (GED), 16 women graduated with associate degrees from Bard Microcollege Holyoke, 2 graduates earned bachelor’s degrees from Smith and Mount Holyoke, and dozens more received college credit.

This year we worked with 56 young mothers who had dropped out of school, many before the tenth grade, helping then to study for the HiSET/ GED exam. Most were Puerto Rican and on public assistance. Twelve successfully passed the high school equivalency exam. Twenty-six women took our on-site 3-credit college courses. We supported 93 graduates as they began their college careers. All face the multiple challenges of living in poverty. But it is abundantly clear that all have tremendous gifts and need only be supported to identify, understand, and mobilize those talents. The Care Center is designed to do just that.

And with our housing partner Way Finders, we opened Roqué House –apartments and cultural programming for young parents in college! Despite the pandemic, ten young families were supported with affordable, stable housing.

Core Programming: Young Mother Education and Support

At the heart of The Care Center is the award-winning, innovative education and cultural program for teen mothers who have dropped out of school and are facing the challenges of living in poverty. The Care Center is unlike any other program in the country. We offer a powerful combination of quality education, cultural access, and the wrap-around supports that make it all work. We provide on-site health care, door-to-door transportation, healthy food, and supportive counseling. High school equivalency test preparation classes happen each morning and a wide array of electives are offered in the afternoon including poetry, dance, rowing and college courses.

The Care Center employs a rich and powerful combination of arts, humanities, athletics, optimism, high expectations, and persistent and convincing messages about the importance of education, particularly higher education. As in other successful educational institutions, we do what it takes to see that the women who participate in our programs succeed.

We have built this program from the perspective that young women in poverty and their wealthier peers need the same things - intellectually, spiritually, and physically. We provide access to intellectual and cultural materials that are often denied those living in poverty like art, theater and philosophy. We are committed to athletic programming. We create space that celebrates intelligence, focus and wonder – a place committed to helping young women understand their gifts and be in control of their true narrative. Whether it’s in the art room, an editorial board meeting, a college course, or in a crew shell on the Connecticut River, Care Center students are given the opportunity to excel and grow.

In addition to our in-house HiSET/GED program, we provided support throughout the region to young parents in whatever educational setting they find themselves, from area colleges to public schools. As we do with the young parents in our classrooms, we provide supports to young parents in the community that accelerate progress and expand a sense of hope and possibility.

Transition to College Programs

The Care Center has come to understand that when faced with high expectations, young people will seek to achieve them. We expect that despite the fact that they have all dropped out of school, the young women who come to The Care Center will not only pass their high school equivalency exam, but will go on to college. And what happens when you give young women what they need to succeed? In the past 15 years, more than 75% of our graduates have gone on to college – hundreds of young mothers who have dropped out of school – on to college – with babies in tow.

Our success on this front is due in large measure to the hard work of the young women who come to The Care Center and the solid pathways to higher education we have built for our students and graduates. While there is a focus on higher education throughout all agency programs, these programs in particular have that as a central focus: The Paper City Poetry Project, a reader’s and writer’s exchange program done in conjunction with Smith College and funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts; Humanities 108, a dual-enrollment 3-credit college course offered with Greenfield Community College; and Reading for Writers –a writing intensive Bard College course intended to strengthen and expand women’s writing skills.

We’ve been working with Bard College for more than two decades offering The Clemente Course in the Humanities, a free college course for Care Center students and other low-income women in the community, where moral philosophy, American history, art history, writing and literature are examined. The project is based on the belief that those who have been denied access to these ideas for economic reasons need and deserve this cultural knowledge to lead fulfilled productive lives and enrich the community. Graduates of the Clemente Course are awarded college credit from Bard College, and more than 80% have gone on to continue

their education. This year 25 women were accepted into the course. We are now the longest-running Clemente Course in the country, the first in New England, and the only one just for women.

Our program design includes a full-time college counselor who works with women at each step of the way toward college success and completion. With the GED/HiSET students, she helps them understand the world of college and the possibilities a college degree can bring to their lives. For those who have just passed the HiSET exam, she works to guide them through the college application process. And for those in college, she provides nuts-and-bolts support as they navigate being a college student and a parent. She works with Care Center graduates and other young parents throughout the region who are in college.

All of these efforts provide young mothers and other women in the community the opportunity to engage with college-level work and expectations.

Associate Degree Program:

Bard Microcollege Holyoke

We offer a program that allows young women to move seamlessly from school drop-out to college graduate all within the structure of The Care Center. We are home to Bard Microcollege Holyoke the first such college in America for young mothers living with the challenges of poverty. This extraordinary initiative builds on our long-standing partnership with Bard College. Blending the knowledge held by both institutions, a team of Bard College and Care Center planners developed an associate degree program here in Holyoke for Care Center graduates and other low income women in the community. Launched in 2016, this free college gives women access to a top-notch liberal arts education together with the supports they need to succeed and complete the degree, supports missing at most colleges. The Microcollege will build to a capacity of 75 students annually. With this new college, we are now able to seamlessly guide young mothers from high school drop-out to college graduate. In FY 2021, 31 women were enrolled in the Microcollege. We celebrated our 16 graduates and marked the sixth year of operations for the college. Support was provided to 20 Microcollege graduates as they took their next steps to area colleges and the workforce. Two graduates completed their bachelor’s degree this year as well.

Early Education

At our site on Cabot Street, we operate a nurturing licensed day care center for the infants and toddlers of our students with a focus on child development, physical exploration, and early literacy. Children grow and thrive in the stimulating and caring environment we create each day. Children are exposed to great fun, an inviting playground, the chance to be with other children, early literacy activities including music, books, and a wide range of educational and exploratory options. We have three classrooms and seven trained educators that joyfully meet all of these babies’ developmental needs while their mothers study in the building. This year we provided education and care to 42 children.

Supportive Housing: Roqué House

The Care Center, in partnership with local housing developer Way Finders Inc. opened the doors to Roqué House, an innovative housing pilot designed to support young parents in college and training. In January 2021, ten families moved into affordable two-bedroom and three-bedroom furnished apartments. The building is also home to a cultural center that includes a performance and community space, seminar room and community art room. The project design also includes an on-site supportive counselor/advocate, personal and academic counseling, arts and educational programming, day care access, and transportation with the goal of creating a stimulating learning environment conducive to study, creativity, and personal growth.

Named for Puerto Rican educator and suffragist Ana Roqué de Duprey (1853-1933), Roqué House is just down the street from the newly renovated public library and part of Way Finders’ Library Commons neighborhood revitalization project. The intention is to inspire young parents to dream big, pursue ambitious academic goals, and reimagine who they can be. Beyond its doors, Roqué House will serve as a bridge between young parents and the wider Holyoke community, transforming the public’s limiting view of what is possible for young parents.

Afterschool Programming: Teen Resource Project

For more than 30 years we have provided creative youth development programming in the Holyoke Public Schools for students who are at risk of dropping out of school and losing a connection with the world of possibility. Developed with our partner The Performance Project, this free after-school program focused on 3rd through 8th graders at the Sullivan School as they were mentored by high school and college students in a caring community that focuses on the arts, social justice, leadership, and academic support. The foundation of the program is caring relationships. Our goal is for young people to develop confidence, initiative and courage both at school and in the community. The program design normally includes workshops in drumming, dance, visual arts, karate, theater, music, storytelling, poetry and homework support. But this year, because of the pandemic, programming had to shift to online Zoom events. Staff prepared and delivered to each young person’s home art-in-a-box projects that were worked on together on Zoom. Pizzas were delivered on a regular basis to all project members and family celebrations featuring music and food took place on Zoom as well.

Despite the challenging year, 25 young people participated in the program supported by staff and 8 college mentors.

Funding Sources Fiscal Year 2021

Young Mother Education and Support Program/Transition to College Program:

Amazon Smile Foundation

Anonymous Foundation

Berkshire Bank

Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation (Patty and Tim Crane Fund)

Charles H. Hall Foundation, Bank of America, N.A. Trustee

Chicopee Community Development

Block Grant using U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Funds

Combined Jewish Philanthropies

Commonwealth Charitable Fund

Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts Eastworks, LLP

Edward L Bernays Foundation, Inc.

Emergency Food and Shelter National Board Program

Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund

Fresh Pond Trust

Greek Orthodox Community, Holy Trinity Inc.

Hampshire Community United Way (DBA UMACC)

Holyoke Community Development

Block Grant using U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Funds

Holyoke Gas and Electric

Jones Whitsett Architects, Inc.

Learning By Giving Foundation, Inc.

Lincoln Financial Foundation, Inc. Massachusetts Cultural Council

Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care

Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education Massachusetts Department of Public Health

Massachusetts Department of Transitional Assistance

Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities

Mount Pleasant Fund

National Endowment for the Arts Network for Good New England Farm Workers’ Council

Non-Profit Data Management

Osterman Family Foundation

Paycheck Protection Program-Small Business Administration

PeoplesBank

People’s United Community Foundation

Poetry Foundation

Rachel’s Table

Raymond Charitable Endowment Fund

Schwartz Family Foundation

Rovithis Realty, LLC

Schwab Charitable Scout Curated Wears

South Congretational Church of Amherst Stiebel Eltron, Inc.

The Agnes M. Lindsay Trust

The Ceres Foundation

The Chicago Community Foundation (Anonymous Donor Advised Fund)

Financial Summary

Fiscal Years 2020 and 2021

Income

Contributions, Gifts, and Special Events

FY 2020 FY 2021

$187,805 $462,822

Private Grants $459,075 $704,543

Government Grants

$1,395,579 $1,426,234

Investment Revenue $1,669 $7,031

PPP Loan Forgiveness

Total Income

Expenses

Salary and Benefits

$ – $214,757

$2,044,128 $2,815,387

$1,124,008 $1,143,248

Occupancy $130,954 $169,783

Other Program/Operating Expenses

$522,637 $499,218

Administrative Expenses $138,680 $129,657

Other Expenses $335 $272

Depreciation $14,512 $17,080

Total Expenses

Excess Revenue Over Expense

$1,931,126 $1,959,258

$113,002 $856,129

Board and Staff Fiscal Year 2021

Administration

Anne Teschner, Executive Director

Karen MacDonald, Bookkeeper/ Administrative Assistant

Susan Madamba, Director of Administration & Finance

Luisa Sarabaez, Receptionist/ Administrative Assistant

Jane Slater, Director of Donor Relations

Jacob Urbanek, Special Projects

Coordinator

Education

Ana Rodriguez, Director

Tara Bernier, Faculty

Julie Lichtenberg, Faculty

Hayley Murphy, Faculty

Marjorie Zaik, Faculty

Student Support

Jenna Sellers, Director

Brittany Footit, Roqué House Counselor

Shanealia Jernigan, Counselor

Emily Laufer, Counselor

Martha Spiro, Nurse Practitioner

Carmen Vicenty, Counselor

Childcare

Aida Diaz, Director

Maria Navarro, Maintenance

Jennifer Rivera, Teacher’s Aide

Mayra Rivera, Teacher & Student Transportation

Leticia Rodriguez, Teacher’s Aide

Milagros Rodriguez, Teacher & Student Transportation

Zuleyka Rodriguez-Nieves, Teacher

Rowing Strong Rowing Together

Laura Christoph, Coach

Olivia Brighenti, Assistant Coach

Maura Joseph, Assistant Coach

Helen Curley-Swannie, Coxwain

Teen Resource Project

Julie Lichtenberg, The Performance Project

Bard Microcollege Partners

Ann Ward, Program Director

Kristine Rose, Program and Continuing Education Coordinator

Clemente Course in the Humanities

Pamela Thompson, Director & Faculty

Christopher Couch, Faculty

Tzivia Gover, Faculty

Jennifer Rosner, Faculty

Elizabeth Sharpe, Faculty

Humanities 108

Caroline Stewart, Faculty

Reading for Writers

Pamela Thompson, Faculty

Board of Directors

Oona Cook

Jane Cross

Jane Frey

Gene Friedlander

Sylvia Galván

John Stephen Hoops

Beth Markens

Cassandra Pierce Tiffany Raines

Cecile Richard

Patricia Sandoval Angela Wright