Giving Tuesday, matching grant

4 Buyers Real Estate is supporting GivingTuesday with a $500 matching donation offer.
Donate to Giving Tuesday. Write to [email protected] and [email protected] to say what you donated. (that’s how we’re keeping track)
We are donating in support of 14 non-profits in our city.

• CORES, Inc The non-profit organization called Community Organization of Refugees from El Salvador (CORES) aids Central American immigrants living in the Boston-area with immigration issues. It also offers ESL and literacy class.
• Community Action Agency of Somerville The mission of the Community Action Agency of Somerville (CAAS) is to reduce poverty among local families and individuals while working to counteract–and whenever possible, eliminate–the societal conditions that cause and perpetuate poverty. CAAS runs the Head Start program in Somerville and Cambridge. We assist families and individuals to keep their homes and prevent homelessness. We work with Somerville residents to obtain the help they need to escape poverty and become economically self-sufficient. CAAS is an “emergency room” for every non-medical need an individual or family may have: housing, food, heat, education. CAAS is also a switchboard for referrals to other agencies that can help people and the center of coalitions that make a stronger Somerville community.
• Family Equality Council Family Equality Council connects, supports, and represents the three million parents who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer in this country and their six million children. We are changing attitudes and policies to ensure that all families are respected, loved, and celebrated—including families with parents who are LGBTQ. We are a community of parents and children, grandparents and grandchildren that reaches across this country. For 30 years we have raised our children and raised our voices toward fairness for all families.
• Groundwork Somerville Groundwork Somerville strives to bring about the sustained regeneration, improvement and management of the physical environment through the development of community-based partnerships which empower people, businesses and organizations to promote environmental, economic and social well-being.
• Massachusetts Alliance of Portuguese Speakers MAPS mission is to improve the lives of Portuguese-speaking individuals and families from Massachusetts and help them become contributing, active participants in American society while maintaining strong ethnic identity and a sense of community. MAPS works with and for the Brazilian, Cape Verdean, Portuguese and other Portuguese-speaking communities to increase access and remove barriers to health, education and social services through direct services, advocacy, leadership and community development.
• Mystic Learning Center Founded in 1971, the mission of the Mystic Learning Center (MLC) is to improve the lives of low-income children and families who live at the Mystic Public Housing Development and surrounding neighborhoods of East Somerville.  Our innovative parent and youth service model uses Mystic parents and teens to manage and design all aspects of the program to meet the needs of the community.  By being active participants in MLC, residents have the opportunity to enhance their own personal development, have an impact on the development of the program, and make contributions to community life.  MLC brings residents together for mutual support as they acquire skills to overcome persistent poverty while creating a healthier community. The Center operates as a 501 (c) (3) tax-exempt, non-profit organization and is licensed to provide school age child care by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.  MLC offers year round educational and recreational activities for youth ages 5-23 during after-school, evening, school-year and summer vacation.  MLC is housed in a modern, accessible facility on-site at the Mystic Development which is near public transportation.
• Respond, Inc. New England’s first domestic violence agency and the second oldest in the nation, RESPOND, Inc. is a pioneer in the movement to end domestic violence. Its work began in the early 1970s, when four Somerville, Massachusetts women started a grassroots effort to support victims of domestic violence by opening their own homes as safe havens for women fleeing abuse. In 1974, these “founding mothers” formed RESPOND. For over 40 years RESPOND has provided life-saving shelter, support services, training and education to more than 100,000 members of the community. Services are free and confidential, and available to all survivors of domestic abuse.
• Second Chances Second Chances’ mission is to provide clothing to people in need, inform supporters about issues affecting our community and help people connect with local organizations or issues that resonate with their values, skills and personal experiences. Since 2005, Second Chances has provided free clothing, shoes, accessories and gift cards to more than 2,500 lower income and homeless people in Cambridge and Somerville and recycled or reused almost 700,000 pounds of clothing, shoes and accessories. Through our clothing donation program, we are helping people in need in our community, conserving natural resources, and diverting waste from our area’s already overflowing landfills. Working closely with our partners, we are involving the community in helping our neighbors, connecting with other community members and preserving the environment.
• St. Patrick’s Shelter  St. Patrick’s Shelter, Somerville. An emergency shelter for homeless women. Guests receive referrals for health care, mental health services, educational services and housing. They have a transitional program which helps guests move towards a better future. Catholic Charities helps families and individuals work toward the goal of getting back on their feet and under their own roof. We offer a variety of temporary shelters as well as permanent supportive residences until that day comes. All of our shelters are staffed by trained men and women who help guide each resident through their path to self-sufficiency and independent living. Most residents are referred through the DHCD Emergency Shelter program. “We don’t ask if you are Catholic, we ask if you are hungry.”
• Somerville Cambridge Elder Services Since 1972, Somerville-Cambridge Elder Services (SCES) has been the area’s aging information and service center.  SCES helps older people and people living with disabilities remain safe and independent in their own homes by providing a wide range of supportive services, as well as information and advice. SCES services are available to older residents of Cambridge and Somerville, as well as their caregivers.  Some services are open to adults with disabilities who are age 16 or older, and to residents of the Greater Boston area.SCES is a state-designated Aging Services Access Point (ASAP) — formerly known as a Home Care Corporation (HCC) — and a federally-designated Area Agency on Aging (AAA).
• Somerville Community Access Television (SCATV) The SCATV Mission: Somerville Community Access Television is a leading public access media center that enables a vibrant and diverse community to express its creativity, explain its ideas, share its cultures, and foster the individual’s right to freedom of speech. SCATV supports and creates community-driven media through education, production resources, and distribution on cable television and the Web.
• Somerville Community Corporation Since 1969, Somerville Community Corporation has served the City of Somerville and its residents. SCC focuses the majority of its resources on the central question of sustaining affordability and livability for the lower income two thirds of the population, the recent immigrants and generational descendants of the earlier immigrants. As a membership-based organization with nearly 400 formal members and 1500 constituents, SCC is a community development corporation strongly rooted in grassroots community organizing practice, resulting in a number of successful campaigns over the years to influence affordable housing policy and neighborhood quality of life improvements. Since 2005, SCC has also built a strong practice of participatory community planning originally with our East Somerville Initiative, concentrated in that neighborhood and later the Community Corridor Planning project along the pathway of the anticipated MBTA Green Line Extension. While SCC aims to benefit the entire community through its community development model, its most important work is directly with the segment of the community most at risk to address critical issues of equity in the face of the tremendous transformation facing the City—and region—today. SCC board and staff members, as well as SCC’s overall membership, has vigilantly concentrated its work to counteract market-driven displacement pressures.
• Somerville Homeless Coalition The mission of the Somerville Homeless Coalition is to provide homeless and near homeless individuals and families with individualized supportive services and tailored housing solutions with a goal of obtaining and maintaining affordable housing.
• Somerville Local First There is a movement growing in our community and across the nation. Somerville Local First is part of it. We are building strong local economies is really just a return to something that has worked for people in the past.  By supporting local and independent businesses with our dollars, they support us with their community partnership.
• The Welcome Project  builds the collective power of Somerville immigrants to participate in and shape community decisions. We do this through programs that strengthen the capacity of immigrant youth, adults and families to advocate for themselves and influence schools, government, and other institutions.