East Boston Savings Bank awards nearly $50G in grants

EAST BOSTON – Ten community organizations, including those in Lynn and Peabody, have been awarded grants totaling $49,985 from East Boston Savings Bank’s Meridian Charitable Foundation.EBSB President and Chief Executive Officer Robert F. Verdonck presented the awards.The 2007 recipients are: CAB Health and Recovery Services, Peabody; Catholic Charities North, Lynn; Crossroads Family Shelter, East Boston; East Boston Central Catholic School; East Boston Harborside Community School; Friends of Excel Academy Charter School, East Boston; North Shore Community Action Programs, Peabody; North Suffolk Mental Health Association, Chelsea; Roca, Inc., Chelsea; and VNA of Middlesex-East & Visiting Nurse Hospice, Wakefield.CAB Health and Recovery Services is a leading substance-abuse agency serving communities across northeastern Massachusetts and greater Boston. It will use the money to purchase furniture for three renovated sober houses.Catholic Charities North, an agency of the Archdiocese of Boston, provides essential social services to those in need on the North Shore, including programs for young parents, basic needs services, homeless prevention, counseling, child care, and education and training for youth and adults. The Meridian Charitable Foundation grant will be used to fund rental and mortgage assistance for families in Lynn, Peabody and Saugus.Crossroads Family Shelter is a transitional shelter that offers support to families, allowing them to live independently. Crossroads will use the grant for the purchase of a kitchen hood system.East Boston Central Catholic is a private school with 263 students in grades pre-kindergarten through 8. It will use the grant money for its extended day after-school program.East Boston Harborside Community School is a nonprofit, multi-service agency serving East Boston and the surrounding communities. The Harborside is charged with meeting the educational, social, cultural, and recreational needs of people of all ages and ethnic groups. It will use the grant to fund transitional adult education classes.Excel Academy Charter School, in its fifth year of operation, has an enrollment of approximately 200 students in grades 5-8 from East Boston and Chelsea. It will use the money to offset the cost of providing verbal and written translation services to families.North Shore Community Action Programs is the designated anti-poverty agency for the communities of Peabody, Salem, Beverly and Danvers, while serving 25 cities and towns on the North Shore. Established in 1965 under the Economic Opportunity Act, NSCAP’s mission is to help low-income people empower themselves as they move towards self-sufficiency. It will use the grant money to implement an online reading literacy program.North Suffolk Mental Health Association helps people achieve independence by providing a wide array of treatment and rehabilitation services, promoting prevention and education, and participating in training and research. It will use the grant to purchase sensory stimulation equipment for the North Harbor Early Childhood Services program in East Boston.Roca, Inc. is an organization committed to serving the most disenfranchised and disengaged young people ages 14-24 in Chelsea, Revere, and East Boston. The grant money will be used to complete renovations at its headquarters.VNA of Middlesex East provides home health care to patients recovering from illness and injury and Visiting Nurse Hospice provides end-of-life care to residents of 28 communities North and Northwest of Boston. It will use the grant to establish an inventory of safety alarms for the Alzheimer’s caregiver program.The Meridian Charitable Foundation was started by the bank in 1998 to benefit non-profit organizations in East Boston, Everett, Lynn, Lynnfield, Melrose, Peabody, Revere, Saugus, Winthrop and other North Shore communities. The foundation has a principal funding of $1 million from EBSB.