FALL 2024 | In This Issue
A Mother’s Long Journey Home
Q&A with the Director of our New Behavioral Health Program
Our President on Giving our Whole Hearts
Introducing our New Holiday Card for 2024
A Mother’s Long Journey Home NEWS
Join Us for Funny Women…Serious Business, October 15th
Q&A
MORRIGAN PHILLIPS, LICSW CLINICAL DIRECTOR,
HEALTH PROGRAM
Morrigan Phillips joined Rosie’s Place in the Spring of 2024. A mental health clinician trained in trauma-informed care and curriculum design, Morrigan has developed numerous programs for individuals with persistent mental illness, substance use and recovery needs. With over a decade of experience providing direct clinical care in urban community-based settings, she leads our new, comprehensive Behavioral Health Program, which will support women like Nai who you read about in our cover story.
What mental and behavioral health challenges do our guests face?
Unfortunately, a great many of the women we serve have suffered repeated trauma. This can include experiencing violence and loss as well as living in the chronic chaos of homelessness and poverty. This means someone is also living in a prolonged state of “survival stress,” a condition in which one is unable to focus on more than the crisis and emergency needs in front of them. As a result, they may struggle with untreated and severe depression, anxiety and dissociative and substance abuse disorders. These struggles can manifest in behaviors that make accessing and maintaining connection to this critical help, extremely difficult for our guests.
How will our new Behavioral Health Program address these challenges with our guests and staff?
As part of Rosie’s Place’s strategic plan, we are building a team to address the spectrum of our guests’ needs with expertise and compassion. We’ll bring on two more licensed social workers and a certified alcohol and drug counselor to provide drop-in services, individual counseling sessions and specialized support groups for our guests and training for our staff.
While our work will be guest-centered—asking women how they are experiencing their mental illness, what circumstances they want to change for themselves and how we can help them—we will also be asking very similar questions of our direct service staff. Questions like: How are you interacting with our guests struggling with mental illness and challenging behaviors? And how can we support you in creating the best practices and outcomes for both them and you? We know that addressing mental illness is difficult work for both our guests and our staff who care so deeply about the women we serve.
What makes our program unique?
A core value of Rosie’s Place is unconditional love. It infuses everything we do from how we provide shelter and serve our meals to our public policy work. Unconditional love requires acceptance, commitment, trust and transparency. It can truly be a transformative act to say, “I will love you as you are and where you are and will help you go exactly where you want to go.” And that’s exactly what Rosie’s Place says and does— for hundreds of different women, in hundreds of different ways—every day.
Nai grew up in an affluent family in Egypt. In school she mastered English, Spanish and French as well as her native Arabic. She came to Boston on a student visa at age 18 and went on to earn a nursing degree from Boston University and a master’s degree from Yale. While working as a nurse, she met her husband, an American citizen. They soon had a baby girl, Cotti. But they were not a healthy or happy family. Nai’s husband was abusive, and when Cotti was three years old, Nai left her husband. Receiving no support from him, Nai worked hard to make a stable life for her daughter.
At this point, Nai’s life began to truly unravel. She struggled with bouts of severe depression, paranoia and post-traumatic stress.
She eventually lost her job and, not long after, she became homeless. For decades, she bounced between having housing and living in shelters or more often, on the street.
“Nai revealed her story to me very gradually over the 15 years we knew each other,” says Chief Program Officer Sandy Mariano. “She was wary of me at first, but I persisted, stopping
Nai’s mental illness posed many challenges to her ability to access help. But we never let them hamper our commitment to working with her.
Over the years, Nai became more comfortable with Rosie’s Place, and she felt safe in sharing with us her dream: to return to her home in Cairo. With her sister’s help, we acquired all of the documentation needed for Nai’s passport and sent information to the Egyptian consulate explaining her situation. After months of effort, the consulate issued Nai’s traveling papers. She was excited but also
Nai’s mental illness posed many challenges to her ability to access help. But we never let them hamper our commitment to working with her.
It was just a few years later that Nai, having already seen her share of heartache, experienced the devastating loss of her daughter. Walking to school one day with her mother, Cotti dropped her hand and ran into the street where she was struck by a motorist and later passed away from her injuries.
Nai’s family rallied around her and wanted her to return to Egypt, but Nai insisted on remaining in the United States so she could participate in the trial of the man who hit Cotti. Upon her wishes, Nai’s daughter was laid to rest in the family’s tomb in Egypt.
The trial went on for a very long time and ended in an acquittal.
to say ‘hi’ or to have a conversation. She wouldn’t sleep in our shelter but instead would sleep outside Rosie’s Place and spend her days inside with us. Over time, we started to meet regularly. But because she refused to provide any real information regarding her identity, it was impossible for us to help her secure the benefits she was eligible for and the comprehensive help she needed.”
It wasn’t only her mental health that was suffering, Nai’s physical health was at risk too. She survived two massive heart attacks and was able to get housing after the first incident but lost it because of hoarding behavior. After the second heart attack, she agreed to enter Department of Mental Healthsupported transitional housing.
deeply anxious to fly alone. Rosie’s Place staffer Jane Adler agreed to accompany her on the first leg of her trip to New York.
A day later, Nai called Rosie’s Place. Her exact words were “I made it to Cairo and I didn’t drop dead of a heart attack on the plane!” Sandy says it was the best call she ever received.
Epilogue: Nai spent the last years of her life with her family, happy to be home at last. She passed away peacefully at 84 and as she requested, was buried alongside her daughter.
Sandy, Nai and Jane at Logan Airport
Our President on Giving our Whole Hearts
Dear Friend,
It is hard to believe that it has been 50 years since Kip Tiernan founded Rosie’s Place. While we have much to celebrate (and as the photos in these pages show, we are celebrating in big ways!), we still have much to do. A half century after our doors opened, we have never been needed more.
Our Dining Room served 47% more meals this year than last year. The number of students in our Women’s Education Center has grown by 23%. And our Advocacy Helpline rings throughout the day with women seeking help to avoid eviction, to have utilities turned back on, to find housing in a Boston that has never been less affordable.
With each passing day and each guest who walks through our doors, it is affirmed that the work of Rosie’s Place must continue.
Our ambitious five-year strategic plan is underway and will grow all our programs by 25%. We will be open for more hours, seven days a week, helping thousands more women each year. And as you read about on page one, our new Behavioral Health Program will provide even greater support to our most vulnerable guests.
Of course, there was much analysis and research that went into formulating these strategies, and in equal measure there was much heart. Our plans were informed by the love we have for our guests, by the hopes we hold for their futures.
For women like Denise, who has been coming to Rosie’s Place for more than 20 years. While her family lives nearby and wishes they could care for her, due to untreated mental illness and addiction, Denise has been homeless for decades. So, for now, her mother must be content with visiting with her at Rosie’s Place, over lunch in our Dining Room—because we are the one place that Denise trusts.
Our new Behavioral Health Program will allow us to better help more women like Denise, and like Nai, whose story you read on page one—those very challenging, deeply wounded guests whom most of society has written off as beyond hope and beyond help. It is my hope that with this more expert support, someday soon Denise will be housed and stable, enjoying lunch with her mother in her own kitchen.
By expanding our programs, we will expand our welcome, making our help more accessible and more responsive to the diverse needs of our very diverse community. We will enhance access to help for the women we know well, and for the ones we’ve just met.
With you by our side, we can be a place where hope is turned into help.
Because we give our whole hearts to this work. And you give Rosie’s Place yours.
Please know that it is a gift that changes lives. Thank you!
With gratitude,
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
Chief External Relations Officer Sue Chandler
Director of Communications/Editor Jamie Doyle
Digital Communications Manager/Contributor Leah Westberry
Communications Associate/Contributor Anna McCracken
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.
Fighting Hunger at Rosie’s Place
Open 365 days per year, the Dining Room at Rosie’s Place provides critical food support for women and their children.
47%
Demand for our Dining Room program is up 47% over last year, with lunch and breakfast service increasing by a staggering 60%. Meals are prepared from scratch and served by staff and volunteers for our guests to have on-site or packaged to-go.
1 in 3
34% of households in Massachusetts—1.9 million people—are considered food insecure, with more than 60% having to choose between buying food and paying for heat and electricity, transportation or rent.
$350
152,000
Last year, we served 152,000 healthy and culturally inclusive meals in the Dining Room, more than ever before. The meals we provide help our guests save on food costs, allowing their budgets to go toward rent, utilities and other essentials.
ensures a nutritious lunch or dinner in our bright and welcoming Dining Room for 75 women and their children.
$150 provides a healthy and hearty breakfast for 35 poor and homeless women.
Help our Dining Room prevent food insecurity at www.rosiesplace.org/hunger
A 50th Anniversary Party for our Community!
Rosie Place’s 50th anniversary celebration continued with a special party for our community. Dancing and the laughter of old friends and new filled our Dining Room. We work day and night to give our guests all the love and support that we can. And throughout, we embrace every opportunity for joy that we can. We are grateful to all our friends who volunteered their time to make this night one to remember!
? Did you know FRIENDS COMMUNITY OF
Our 50th anniversary Safe & Sound Gala was held on May 8th at the Cyclorama at the Boston Center for the Arts. A celebration of philanthropy, food and friends, this year’s gala raised a record-breaking $920,000 to support our critical work.
Retired WCVB 5 anchor Susan Wornick and WBUR’s Darryl C. Murphy served as event co-hosts, and guests enjoyed chef tastings and live and silent auctions. We appreciate the support of our event chairs: Bank of America, Cherise and Robert Bransfield, William P. Collatos, Christina and Michael Gordon, Erin O’Connor Kent and Patrick Kent, Marriott Daughters Foundation, Michele May and David Walt and Deb and Mark Pasculano, whose generosity helped make this night such an amazing celebration of our community.
American Family Insurance (AFI) agency owners and employees created more than 2,400 Care Packages of essential hygiene products for our guests! We are grateful to our amazing friends at AFI and their subsidiary, Homesite Insurance, for their impactful wraparound support, which in addition to Care Packages and financial support also includes regular volunteerism in our Dining Room.
Our Food Pantry has a new partner! Boston Medical Center’s Newmarket Farm is now helping us provide locally grown produce to 350 women daily. Together, our Food Pantry and their rooftop farm are strengthening our community’s food system!
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 more than 12,000 women a year.
We are pleased to offer this year’s new image from acclaimed local artist Sam Vokey. Winter Light on Boston Common evokes the hush and chill of a winter’s walk across the Common.
Please visit www.rosiesplace.org/holidaycards to view all ten classic Boston scenes and whimsical illustrations.
You can remember Rosie’s Place at holiday time in two ways:
Purchase packs of cards
• Ten winter scenes to choose from
• 10-pack of 1 design: $20
• 15-pack 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: Anna McCracken at 617.318.0238
• Email: info@rosiesplace.org
• Mail: send a check to Rosie’s Place, Attn: Holiday Cards, 889 Harrison Ave., Boston, MA 02118
In June, our staff participated in an end-of-year celebration and resource fair at Mason Pilot Elementary School. Our Advocates connected with families in the community and shared information about our many programs and services.
In July, we celebrated our annual A Day to Love Yourself providing nail painting, face masks, chair yoga, crafting and more for our guests. A cherished Rosie’s Place tradition, this event provides our guests with an opportunity to be pampered.
Rosie’s Place was recently honored with the Boston Bar Association’s John G. Brooks Legal Services Award, recognizing our “holistic approach to meeting the complex needs of our most vulnerable residents.”
In May, our Public Policy team accompanied students from our Women’s Education Center on a tour of the Massachusetts State House. Together, they delivered letters to our state representative in support of the HERO Bill, which would offer municipalities the resources to build housing that is both affordable and green.
Our summer Social Justice Institute welcomed 16 high school students! This educational and enriching program offers teenagers an opportunity to learn about social justice issues while also participating in hands-on service projects that support our community. We are so grateful for their enthusiasm and curiosity.
Gala co-hosts Darryl C. Murphy of WBUR and retired WCVB 5 anchor Susan Wornick.
Help Us Mark 50 Years with 500 New Friends!
For 50 years, our doors and hearts have remained open, turning hope into help for our community’s most vulnerable. And today, Rosie’s Place has never been needed more.
As the challenges facing our guests continue to multiply, so too does our help. Our guests are counting on our compassion. Can we count on yours?
Join Friends for All Seasons and, in honor of our 50th anniversary, help us reach our goal of 500 new friends who support us year-round!
SERIOUS BUSINESS FUNNY WOMEN...
A Luncheon Celebrating 50 Years of Turning Hope into Help Tuesday, October 15, 2024
This year’s featured speaker is Stephanie Land, an activist and acclaimed author whose work focuses on economic and social justice, domestic violence and parenting under the poverty line. Her New York Times bestselling memoir, Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive, was adapted into a Golden Globe and Emmy Award-nominated series on Netflix. Land’s second memoir, Class: A Memoir of Motherhood, Hunger, and Higher Education, was released in 2023 and picks up where Maid left off as she faces the challenges of being a single parent and a college student struggling to support her daughter and herself.
The event is made possible through the support of Presenting Sponsors: Bank of America, Cherise and Robert Bransfield, Christina and Michael Gordon, G-P, Erin O’Connor Kent and Patrick Kent, Kristen and John Maxwell, Michele May and David Walt, Bob and Christa Murray, New Balance Foundation and Deb and Mark Pasculano; Presenting Centerpiece Sponsor Neiman Marcus; and Leading Sponsors: Christy and Jay Cashman, Elaine Construction/Lisa Wexler and Tom Monroe, Forest Foundation, The Gilson Family Foundation, Thuy and Tuan Ha-Ngoc, Beth Edwards Harris, Highland Partners Charitable Fund 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 we can continue turning hope into help for more than 12,000 women in need every year.
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 Wednesday, December 18th at 7:00pm at CitySpace in Boston for this beloved holiday tradition, as WBUR personalities read Charles Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol. Visit our website at www.rosiesplace.org or check our social media for more details.
rosiesplace.org
Boston, MA 02118
889 Harrison Avenue
