Catholic Charities Boston’s Teen Center Receives Cummings Foundation Grant

Catholic Charities Boston’s Teen Center at St. Peter’s Parish in Boston has received a generous grant from the Cummings Foundation. As a longtime supporter of the Teen Center, the foundation will donate $100,000 for each of the next three years. In addition, the foundation has also offered an annual challenge grant of $50,000 to match new commitments made in support of the Teen Center over the same three-year period. 

 The Cummings grant will allow the Teen Center, which serves 300 adolescents living within the Bowdoin-Geneva neighborhood of Dorchester, to hire a program coordinator for its new mentoring program matching adult mentors within the community to students ages 9 to 17; a sports and recreation director for the Youth Soccer Travel and Tournament Team; and an administrative assistant. The remainder of the grant will be used to advance the College and Career Center’s services and to expand summer programming. 

“We are so grateful for the opportunities that the Cummings Foundation grant has opened up for Boston youth,” said Janet MacDougall, Vice President of Family and Youth Services. “This generous additional funding will help support and expand important programs offered by the Teen Center. As a non-profit center, the program relies on foundations, grants and private donors that acknowledge the important work the program performs and the positive impact that we can make on the youth living within Dorchester and surrounding areas.”  

A primary goal of the Teen Center is to help every student matriculate into higher education or a job training certification program following high school graduation. Thanks to the generous support of the Cummings Foundation, 100% of high school Teen Center members passed the MCAS requirement for graduation. Of the 25 seniors who graduated last year, all matriculated on time with 24 attending an accredited post-secondary education program and one attending job training certification program with a local union. 

The Cummings $25 Million Grant Program supports Massachusetts nonprofits that are based in and primarily serve Middlesex, Essex, and Suffolk Counties. Through this place-based initiative, Cummings Foundation aims to give back in the areas where it owns commercial property. Its buildings are all managed, at no cost to the foundation, by its affiliate, Cummings Properties. This Woburn-based commercial real estate firm leases and manages 11 million square feet of debt-free space, the majority of which exclusively benefits the foundation.

Learn more about the Catholic Charities Teen Center at St. Peter’s here.  

About Cummings Foundation 

Woburn-based Cummings Foundation, Inc. was established in 1986 by Joyce and Bill Cummings and has grown to be one of the largest private foundations in New England. The Foundation directly operates its own charitable subsidiaries, including New Horizons retirement communities, in Marlborough and Woburn, and Cummings Health Sciences, LLC. Additional information is available at www.CummingsFoundation.org.