Rosie's Place Fall Newsletter 2023

Joyce Smith has been with Rosie’s Place for a decade. She first was a Front Desk Advocate before moving to positions in our Food Pantry and Overnight Shelter programs. Since 2021, Joyce has overseen our 20-bed Overnight Shelter Program, ensuring sanctuary and support for every guest who stays with us.

What makes the Rosie’s Place Overnight Shelter unique?

Our shelter doesn’t look like most shelters. It looks like an apartment or a dormitory. We have two floors of bedrooms, a wellequipped kitchen, dining area, laundry room and community space for our guests. More than anything, what sets our program apart is that our guests stay with us for three weeks. When a woman doesn’t have to worry about where she is sleeping every night, how she is going to eat and just survive each day, she has a chance to exhale, connect to our services and plan her next steps.

Who stays in our Overnight Shelter?

Our guests are young and old. They are women who due to one tragic setback, find themselves homeless for the first time. And they are women who due to trauma, mental illness or substance use disorder, may be chronically homeless. Women come to us from across town, out of state and sometimes even other countries.

When a guest arrives, how is she welcomed?

The first thing we tell every woman who stays with us is, “Please consider this your home for the next three weeks. We’re glad you’re here and we are here to help you.” Our team strives to give our guests all the support and comfort that we can in both little and big ways. This means providing pajamas and toiletries; or it could be getting a favorite hot sauce for a guest who misses her family’s cooking; buying a new walker for a guest who lost hers in the chaos of being homeless; or adjusting our schedules to accommodate a guest who works the night shift.

Beyond shelter and respite, what other help does Rosie’s Place provide to guests staying with us?

While we never ask a guest what brought her to us, we always ask her what she wants to work on while she’s with us. If a guest wants to work on getting housing or a job, we’ll connect her with our Housing Search or Employment Specialists. If she wants to work on her sobriety or mental health, we can connect her with our Recovery Support Navigator, our Clinical Social Worker, support groups or medical staff in our Wellness Center. Rosie’s Place has so many programs and services that we can always help.

FALL 2023 | In This Issue

Much More Than Shelter

Q & A with our Overnight Shelter Program Manager

Our Women’s Education Center Celebrates Progress

Our President on Not Waiting to be Asked

Introducing a New Holiday Card

Join Us for Funny Women…Serious Business, November 7th

Much More Than Shelter

Trina felt like she never had a family or place to call home. Raised by her stepmother, they made it work for a time, but with too many people living in the apartment, eventually she was forced to leave.

With no one else to care for her, Trina navigated her teenage years on her own. She stayed with friends when she could but was never in one place long enough to finish school.

When she found Rosie’s Place as a young adult, we welcomed her with compassion. We provided her with a bed in our Overnight Shelter Program along with a dresser, toiletries and pajamas. At Rosie’s Place, she could rest and gather her thoughts.

Trina remembers, “I actually got to sleep on a bed! That was when I began feeling like I was safe.”

During her three-week stay in our shelter, Trina could access all the services at Rosie’s Place. She did her laundry and cooked in the shared kitchen with groceries from our Food Pantry. She took time to catch her breath and then started on her next steps.

With our help, Trina searched for a job and housing. When she shared that she wanted to go back to school, we

connected her to a GED program. In time, Trina secured a catering position, enrolled in classes to complete her degree and moved into her own apartment.

Proud of what she’d accomplished, Trina kept taking strides forward. She started a program to become a home health worker, and Rosie’s Place paid for her tuition.

Just when she felt settled, Trina began struggling with serious health issues. She lost her job and fell behind in rent. Panicked, she turned to Rosie’s Place once again.

When Trina called our helpline, we welcomed her back with open arms. We stabilized her crisis, preventing her eviction with rental assistance and negotiating with her landlord to establish a payment plan for the months ahead.

Today, Trina works as a Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) and is considering a degree in Nursing. She keeps in touch and updates us on her progress during monthly check-ins. In this way, she remains connected to support—ensuring she can stay on track with her rent and in meeting her goals. Most of all, Trina no longer feels alone. She has a family now at Rosie’s Place, filled with friends she can rely on and people who care for her.

Trina’s face lights up as she talks about what her life is like now.

“When I look back at where I started from, I feel like I accomplished a lot. To get the high school diploma, the CNA license…to being able to have a job like everyone else…to have something you are calling your own, after all you’ve been through…I start crawling, and then walk, and then I’m flying!”

Trina came to Rosie’s Place looking for a safe place to spend the night. Thanks to friends like you, she found so much more. With assistance from Rosie’s Place, she transformed her life.

Our Women’s Education Center Celebrates Progress!

English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) students in our Women’s Education Center (WEC) spent this past semester writing, workshopping and typing pieces about the many ways one can make progress—from learning a new language to starting a new job. We compiled their work into a book titled Celebrating Progress, which our longtime friends at Bridgeport National Bindery generously published for us.

Students dedicated the book with the following inscription: “In class, we make progress together correcting our writing, adding new words like

“delightful” and typing it up ourselves. We dedicate this book to the Rosie’s Place community, and our families who will read, share and expand on our ideas. We hope our families around the world will learn to write as we have and feel part of the Rosie’s Place family as we do.”

We celebrated this beautiful new book with readings in our classrooms and a reception in our Dining Room. We are so proud to welcome and support our students from around the world. Their persistence and progress inspire us!

JOYCE SMITH

OVERNIGHT SHELTER PROGRAM MANAGER

Our President on Not Waiting to be Asked

Dear Friend,

Often, when I am in the middle of giving a first-time visitor a tour of Rosie’s Place—somewhere between our stops in the Dining Room, Food Pantry, Advocacy office and Women’s Education Center classrooms—that visitor will turn to me in surprise and say, “Wow! I thought you were only a shelter.”

Friends like you know that we are much more than a welcoming shelter for our guests. As Trina’s story and our conversation with Joyce Smith on page one illustrate, at Rosie’s Place, we offer comprehensive, compassionate, immediate and expert support to every woman who seeks our help.

Poor and homeless women come to us because they are out of other options. Any financial reserves have been spent and all resources have been exhausted. Their needs may be as basic as a shower or a meal and as complicated as housing or recovery. We meet each woman where she is and as she is.

Recognizing that asking for help can be the hardest and most humbling thing one can do, we don’t wait to be asked for our help, we offer it freely.

Today, one in three adults in the Commonwealth is unsure of where their next meal is coming from as housing costs soar and force many women and their families into unexpected homelessness.

In response, our Dining Room served more than 100,000 meals this past year, nearly double the number served last year. And our Advocates have increased their eviction prevention work by 165% and doubled utility arrearage assistance. This work, like all our programs at Rosie’s Place, is vital to keeping women and their children stable and safe.

Surely, this is no time to wait to be asked. This is a time to do more and be more for those who need us most, to stand up and offer. Rosie’s Place has just embarked on an ambitious five-year strategic plan to do just that.

Our plan provides a road map to both expand and enhance existing programs, with a focus on the behavioral health needs of our guests. This thoughtful and impactful growth will enable us to serve more women in more ways than ever before.

As we near 50 years of service to our community’s most vulnerable, we remain committed to our mission to provide them with dignity, opportunity and security. So long as there is a need for Rosie’s Place, we will continue to extend our hearts and our help to every woman we can.

We are so grateful that we are able to count on your compassion so that our guests can count on ours.

With appreciation,

Leemarie Mosca

ROSIE’S PLACE NEWS is published three times a year to inform our friends about activities and events taking place throughout the Rosie’s Place community.

OUR MISSION is to provide a safe and nurturing environment to help poor and homeless women to maintain their dignity, seek opportunity, and find security in their lives.

OUR VISION is based on the words of our founder, Kip Tiernan: “Never forget that charity is scraps from the table and justice is a seat at the table. Charity is giving to others what belongs to you. Justice is giving others what belongs to them.”

At Rosie’s Place, we believe diversity, equity and inclusion are core components of justice. We commit to acting on a daily basis to dismantle injustice to ensure that opportunities and equitable outcomes are available to all members of our community regardless of individual characteristics including race, color, religion, national origin, gender, gender identity, age, sexual orientation or perceived ability.

President/CEO Leemarie Mosca

Director of Communications/Editor Jamie Doyle

Digital Communications Manager/Contributor Leah Westberry

Design Colette O’Neill

We’d love to hear from you! Please contact us with your comments at jdoyle@rosiesplace.org or 617.318.0265.

A Beloved Annual Rosie’s Place Tradition: A Day to Love Yourself

In May, we celebrated our annual A Day to Love Yourself, an event that gives our guests a chance to be pampered–mind, body and spirit. While we know providing for basic needs is crucial for health and security, we also know that providing opportunities for self-care and nourishment is equally as important. From nail painting to jewelry making, gift bags to photo booths and karaoke to fruit smoothies, we had a host of activities and treats for guests to enjoy!

Did you know FRIENDS COMMUNITY OF

In August, students enrolled in our Women’s Education Center’s English conversation class “Summer in the City” went on a trolley tour of Boston. Our wonderful volunteer teachers led students in learning, talking about and taking part in many of the great activities happening in Boston over the summer!

Our annual Safe & Sound Gala was held on May 10th at The Cyclorama at the Boston Center for the Arts. A celebration of food, friends and philanthropy, the gala raised nearly $745,000 to support our life-changing programs and services for poor and homeless women. Retired WCVB 5 anchor Susan Wornick and WBUR’s Darryl C. Murphy served as event cohosts and guests enjoyed chef tastings as well as live and silent auctions. We appreciate the support of our event chairs Bank of America, Cherise and Robert Bransfield, Christina and Michael Gordon, Marriott Daughters Foundation, Michele May and David Walt and Deb and Mark Pasculano, whose generosity helped make this memorable and momentous night for our community possible!

We are so grateful for a recent grant from our longtime partner, the Yawkey Foundation. With this generous funding, we will make improvements to our Overnight Shelter and expand technology access for our guests. Thanks to supporters like the Yawkey Foundation, we will continue addressing the evolving and critical needs of thousands of poor and homeless women every year.

Over the summer, 10 high school students took part in our Social Justice Institute. Students earned community service hours while learning about social justice issues and supporting the women of Rosie’s Place by preparing and serving meals in our Dining Room, leading activities and assembling Care Packages for our guests. Visit www.rosiesplace.org/carepackages to learn how you can create packages of much needed personal hygiene items for our guests.

Boston Globe named Rosie’s Place President/ CEO Leemarie Mosca as one of their 2023 Trailblazers who is shaping a brighter future for the city and the Commonwealth. Under her direction, Rosie’s Place programs have evolved and expanded to meet the unprecedented needs of our community. Read more about how Leemarie and this remarkable group of women are making change that makes a difference in our community at bit.ly/tribute-to-trailblazers.

In August, guests enjoyed fun in the sun on our annual beach trip! We are grateful to our friends at Deloitte for donating bags stocked with goodies and longtime supporters St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Hanover for sponsoring this annual event that our community always looks forward to!

Send holiday greetings to your family, friends and clients, and give the gift of hope to poor and homeless women. The holiday cards you purchase from Rosie’s Place for business or personal use will help fund new beginnings for 12,000 women a year.

We are pleased to offer this year’s new image from acclaimed local artist Sam Vokey. Twilight on the Ice captures a crisp winter evening being enjoyed on Boston Common.

Please visit www.rosiesplace.org to view all ten classic Boston scenes and whimsical illustrations.

We are delighted to host musical performances from students of The New England Conservatory. Their visits fill our Dining Room with beautiful music and make meals all the more enjoyable for our guests!

Purchase packs of cards

• Ten winter scenes to choose from

• 10-packs of 1 design: $20

• 15-packs with 3 designs: $26

• Comes with envelopes and classic greeting inside: “Warm wishes for a happy and healthy holiday season.”

Personalize your greeting with custom-printed cards

• Available on orders of 50+ cards

• Print a unique message in color or black and white

• Add logo, photo or signatures for a special touch Envelopes are included and can be customized

• Our online ordering system makes ordering quick and easy

Order your special holiday greetings while supporting the work of Rosie’s Place today!

• Online: www.rosiesplace.org/holidaycards

• Phone: Leah Westberry at 617.318.0210

• Email: webmaster@rosiesplace.org

• Mail: send a check to Rosie’s Place, Attn: Holiday Cards, 889 Harrison Ave., Boston, MA 02118

In the past year, we have launched six new wellness groups to address the rise in guests seeking recovery help and behavioral healthcare. Each week, our Mental Health Clinician and Recovery Support Navigator help dozens of women find support through shared experience.

From left to right: Then Rosie’s Place Board Chair Jacquie Anderson, Rosie’s Place President/CEO Leemarie Mosca and event co-hosts Susan Wornick and Darryl C. Murphy of WBUR.

Your Legacy, Her Opportunity

SERIOUS BUSINESS FUNNY WOMEN...

Caring support from friends like you enables Rosie’s Place to remain a lifeline for every woman who seeks our help.

Below are some tax-advantaged giving options to consider that will allow your generosity to help sustain our work now and for years to come.

IRA Rollover/Qualified Charitable Distribution (QCD)

If you are 70 ½ or older, you may take advantage of the IRA charitable rollover: You can donate up to $100,000 to satisfy the minimum required distribution of your IRA account, while also reducing your taxable income.

Your gift must pass directly from your IRA administrator to Rosie’s Place, and any transfer must be completed by December 31st of the corresponding tax year.

Gifts of Stock

Donate an appreciated stock and avoid capital gains tax, while receiving a charitable deduction of the full fair-market value.

Donor-Advised Fund

Recommend a one-time or recurring grant to Rosie’s Place from your Donor-Advised Fund. Contact your fund representative for details.

Planned Gift

You can create a better future for our guests by including Rosie’s Place in your estate plans today.

For more information, please contact Michael Oliver at 617.318.0291 or moliver@rosiesplace.org, or you can visit www.rosiesplace.org/plannedgifts.

Thank you! We appreciate your consideration and commitment to our guests.

Rosie’s Place is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization. Gifts made to Rosie’s Place are tax deductible to the full extent of the law. EIN: 04-2582187. We are proud that 87 cents of every dollar raised goes directly to services for poor and homeless women.

and David Walt, New Balance Foundation and Deb and Mark Pasculano; Presenting Centerpiece Sponsor Neiman Marcus; and Leading Sponsors Cherise and Robert Bransfield, Forest Foundation, The Gilson Family Foundation, Beth Edwards Harris, Erin O’Connor Kent and Patrick Kent and Pinkham Busny LLP (as of printing date).

Proceeds will benefit Rosie’s Place’s vital programs and services for poor and homeless women. Your support ensures that we remain a place of help and hope for more than 12,000 women in need every year.

SAVE

Sponsor opportunities are available. Please contact Olivia Davis Wilson for more information at 617.318.0211 or odaviswilson@rosiesplace.org.

WBUR’s

A Christmas Carol

Join us on Tuesday, December 19th at 7:00 pm at CitySpace in Boston for this festive holiday tradition, as WBUR personalities read Charles Dickens’ classic, A Christmas Carol. Visit our website www.rosiesplace.org or check our social media for more details.

rosiesplace.org

Boston, MA 02118

889 Harrison Avenue