Rep. Stanley Secures Funding for Waltham Nonprofits in House Budget

In the House fiscal year 2025 (FY25) budget, Rep. Stanley secured critical funding for several nonprofit organizations serving Waltham residents. Budget wins include:

• $100,000 for programs under Jewish Family & Children’s Service’s (JF&CS) Center for early relationship support, including Fragile Beginnings and Project NESST (Newborns Exposed to Substances: Support and Therapy). Fragile Beginnings and Project NESST help address the pressing needs of parents whose babies are born prematurely, with complex medical problems, or are substance exposed. The funding will provide additional services for new mothers in early recovery from substance use disorder, including increased technical assistance training for community partners, mental health support services for caregivers of medically complex infants, and intensive, trauma-centered clinical and case management services to address traumatic stress and build resilience in children ages birth to five and their families.

• $100,00 for More Than Word, Inc. (MTW) Young Parents program which ensures that all young parents have stable housing and access to childcare. MTW empowers youth who are the in the foster care system, court involved, homeless, or out of school to take charge of their lives by taking charge of a business. MTW recently revamped its services to better support young parents to participate in programming and find success for themselves and their families. Under the MTW young parents program, clients utilize adapted scheduling to work around childcare commitments along with individualized support and advocacy from the MTW Advocacy and Community Engagement team. The funds will directly support the MTW staff who work with these parents and provide job training, case management, and individualized advocacy.

• $75,000 for the Waltham Tourism Council (WTC) which seeks to improve the quality of life by maximizing the economic impact and tax revenues generated by visitors to Waltham and the surrounding region. This funding helps the organization with multiple projects including improved directional signage throughout the city, printing promotional materials such as a restaurant guide, Facebook and Twitter management, advertising videos produced by our local cable channel (Waltham Community Access Corp.), and marketing for many of the spring and summer events the city hosts such as Waltham Riverfest and the Waltham Steampunk Festival.

• $50,000 for the Waltham Chamber of Commerce which provides a multitude of events and services to Waltham each year, ensuring that our small business community remains vibrant, economically healthy while also maintaining a strong sense of partnership across different sectors of industry. With over 600 business members invested within the Chamber, this in turn creates a “voice for business” in the city, organizing a wide range of community growth initiatives such as economic/community development and business/educational programs. This funding supports the salary of the Chamber’s efforts to increase membership and support economic development for Waltham.

• $350,000 for Hope & Comfort, Inc., one of the only nonprofits in Massachusetts whose one focus is on addressing hygiene security. This funding will help the organization to deliver a year’s supply of essential hygiene products to more youth and adults in need. The organization acquires basic hygiene products such as soap, toothpaste, toothbrushes, shampoo, deodorant, and menstrual products and distribute these products free of charge to those that cannot afford them in Massachusetts. In 2023, Hope & Comfort helped approximately 500,000 people struggling with hygiene security across 324 Massachusetts cities and towns.

Rep. Stanley also helped secure an additional $1.6 million for Community Health Centers (CHCs) under budget line item 4510-0110. This grant program provides flexible resources to CHCs, enabling them to meet the increasing demand for services and care. CHCs have partnered with the Department of Public Health to use these funds to create innovative, urgently needed workforce solutions, including the training and certifying of 115 medical assistants that are expected to serve in CHCs by the end of FY24. This funding would help our CHCs continue the progress they’ve made recruiting and retaining a high-quality workforce.