Today marks New Englands first ever Tech Gives Back day. We’re proud to help organize and host the day alongside Boston Cares and Technology Underwriting Greater Good (TUGG). 40 of Boston’s leading innovating companies have teams volunteering at a dozen non-profits in and around Boston — with a total 500 volunteers participating.
Following this tech citizenship day is an after party from 5pm to 9pm at the Citi Performing Arts Center (former Wang Theater). You can still register for the after party if you weren’t able to participate in projects with a $25 ticket. All ticket proceeds going to the startup non-profits that TUGG funds every year, and it provides you with free food and drink (wine, beer and Avion — the tequila featured in popular HBO television series Entourage), live band entertainment, and obviously Boston’s brightest innovators as company.
Thank you to all the tech and creative companies in the Boston area for taking a day away from their product roadmaps, launches, partnerships, and otherwise to give back to the community. We look forward to seeing you tonight! On Twitter, the hashtag for the days festivities is #TechGivesBack.
Companies giving back today include:
Advanced Electron Beams, Atlas Venture, Bit9, Brown Rudnick, InsightSquared, Caisson, Celtra, Charles River Ventures, Chase Technology Consultants, Communispace, CSN Stores, DataXu, Ernst & Young, Fama PR, Flybridge Capital, General Catalyst Partners, GrandBanks Capital, Grove Street Advisors, Harris William & Co, Help Scout, InnerCity Weightlifting, Kel & Partners, Lucky Labs, Lynx, Merrill Lynch, Newmark Knight Frank, Nexage, Openview Venture Partners, Performable, Polachi & Co, Siemens, Silicon Valley Bank, Simple Tuition, Swellr, Vela Systems, Vertica, Volition Capital, WHERE / PayPal, Wilmer Hale, Winter Wyman, Young Entrepreneurs Alliance
Here are the locations and non-profits they’ll be assisting:
Boston Area
Greater Boston Food Bank | 70 South Bay Ave., Boston
Founded in 1981, The Food Bank is part of the America’s Second Harvest National Network, the nation’s largest hunger-relief organization. The Food Bank is the largest hunger-relief organization in New England. Their network of 700+ hunger-relief agencies distributes nearly 24 million pounds of food annually and feed more than 87,000 people weekly.
Volunteers will inspect, sort, and package donated grocery products that are then distributed to hunger relief agencies. Volunteer tasks include loading boxes onto conveyor belts, inspecting products, sorting products, and checking and labeling boxes. This site is accessible via MBTA.
More Than Words | 242 East Berkeley St., Boston
More Than Words (MTW) is a non-profit social enterprise that empowers youth who are 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 currently runs a bookstore/cafe in Waltham and will be opening a new location in Boston this year.
Boston: Volunteers are needed to assist with the opening of the Boston store. Tasks may include building bookshelves, sorting donations, or other needs as determined by MTW.
Mary Lyon School | 95 Beechcroft St., Brighton
The Mary Lyon School is a former K-8 school in Brighton that recently expanded into another building to include a high school as a pilot school. The Boston Public School is currently serving grades K-10, and adding an additional grade each year over the next two years to develop into a full high school. Through this process, the Lyon has re-opened a former elementary school for their high school space and is currently undergoing a series of renovations to make the building both usable, and more “high school friendly”.
Volunteers are needed to assist with a variety of painting tasks in the school in order to ready it for use next fall.
Mather Elementary School | 1 Parish St., Dorchester
The Mather Elementary School is the first public elementary school in the United States, built in 1639. Today, it is a K-5 school within the Boston Public School System serving approximately 600 students of diverse backgrounds; 81% qualify as low income, and 48% do not speak English as their first language.
Volunteers will assist with several tasks that include leading games and activities at the school’s annual field day; painting and repainting games on the play-lot; and light landscaping and grounds clean-up. This site is accessible via MBTA.
Long Island Shelter & Boston Public Health Commission | Long Island – access via East Squantum St., Quincy
Long Island, part of the Boston Harbor Islands National Park, is managed by the City of Boston and houses social services managed by the Boston Public Health Commission.
The Boston Public Health Commission Homeless Services Bureau provides over 700 emergency shelter and transitional beds throughout the city, offering a broad range of critical and rehabilitative services to homeless men and women each and every day. The Homeless are a diverse group facing many difficulties, among them: an inability to find affordable housing, mental and physical illness, alcohol and substance abuse problems, the effects of domestic instability, limited education, a lack of job skills and unemployment. Often, homeless people have lost contact with any network of personal support they may have had in the past. BPHC’s services to the homeless are dedicated to addressing these difficulties. One program offered at this site is the Serving Ourselves Farm, a vocational rehabilitation program that provides paid, hands-on job training, work skills development and job search skills to enable participants to transition out of the shelter and into community housing. Assistance is needed both with the shelter facilities, and with the island itself.
Shelter: Volunteers are needed to help with three projects around the shelter, including painting a building that will begin to house a substance abuse program later this year, working on the Serving Ourselves Farm and assisting with the 3,000lbs of linens that need to be laundered each week.
Island: Volunteers will be conducting a large-scale beach clean-up around the island.
The Pine Street Inn | 444 Harrison Avenue, Boston
Founded in 1969, the Pine Street Inn is a private, non-profit organization that provides a continuum of care for homeless men, women and children. As the largest shelter for the homeless in New England, Pine Street offers an atmosphere of dignity, respect and hope where homeless persons find opportunities to move beyond shelter to housing and other appropriate programs.
10 volunteers will be helping out in the kitchen, making meals, etc. 5 volunteers will be helping the facilities workers with various tasks around the shelter, including clean-up and general maintenance.
Extras for Creative Learning | 443 Warren St., Dorchester
Extras for Creative Learning (ExCL) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1979 by an artist/educator inspired by African artisans transformation of simple materials into powerful art. The use of reclaimed materials obtained through ExCL enables teachers, early educators and program providers to help kids realize their creative abilities while experiencing art, science, social studies and language arts through interactive means.
Volunteers will help clean up the warehouse Extras maintains for its clients.
Lincoln
Massachusetts Audubon Society: Drumlin Farms Learning Garden | 208 South Great Road, Lincoln
Mass Audubon’s Drumlin Farms is a working farm that is situated within a wildlife sanctuary. Visitors learn about farming and wildlife through interactive exhibits, petting areas, wildlife exhibits and nature trails, plus so much more. The Learning Garden is home to a greenhouse, vegetable beds, flower gardens and teaching areas. This area is heavily utilized by visitors and programs – children and family, schools, and camps. The new adjacent Farm Life Center has classrooms, a visitor information kiosk and kitchen. The entire area around the center will be landscaped to tie into the existing Learning Garden.
Volunteer tasks will include ground preparation; planting trees, shrubs, native perennials and ground covers; building and installing a new composting center; and building and installing raised vegetable beds.
Mattapan
Gallivan Community Center | 61 Woodruff Way, Mattapan
The Gallivan Community Center is part of Boston Centers for Youth & Families (BCYF), Boston’s largest youth and human service agency. BCYF offers a spectrum of programs for families looking for activities and services for children and youth, infants to elders. The goal of the BCYF is to provide education and recreation programs that are both enriching and fun at quality facilities in every neighborhood of Boston.
Volunteers will provide a massive face lift to the Center . Indoor tasks will include painting the teen and after school program rooms and the gymnasium. Outdoors, volunteers will be planting and weeding flower beds, painting a four-square court, railings and doors, as well as raking and pruning. This site is accessible via MBTA.
Waltham
Department of Conservation and Recreation | Mass Central Rail Trail, Waltham
The Mass Central Rail Trail is a 26 mile corridor of unused rail that was recently leased by the Department of Conservation and Recreation from the MBTA with the ambitious goal of converting it into a rail trail. The area is located in a primarily industrial section of Waltham, and the eventual goal is to turn it into a usable space for walkers and bikers.
Volunteers are needed to cut and chip encroaching vegetation and pick up trash to allow for visitors to use it for walking.
Beverly
The Food Project | 572 Essex St., Beverly
The Food Project is a place where people from all backgrounds join together to work for more livable communities. The Food Project’s youth workers and volunteers farm land in Beverly that produces healthy, locally grown food for urban farmers markets, food banks and soup kitchens, among other programs. Additionally, they farm land in urban Boston that they transformed from vacant lots into lush, city farms. Their community produces healthy food for residents of the city and suburbs, provides leadership opportunities for youth, and inspires others to create change in their own communities.
Volunteers will assist at the Beverly and Lynn farms with land maintenance, planting and harvesting vegetables, and other tasks as needed to produce and distribute food to the variety of programs served by the Food Project.
