Flutie in Lynn to help Eastern Bank in awarding 31 community organizations

LYNN – The Boys and Girls Club of Lynn, Children’s Law Center and Raw Art Works were among 31 non-profit organizations honored Wednesday in the 6th annual Eastern Bank “Community Quarterback” award ceremony which featured Heisman Trophy winner and former NFL quarterback Doug Flutie.Eastern Bank honored the organizations for their exemplary community leadership, giving away more than $300,000 in grants from the Eastern Bank Charitable Foundation. Each organization was awarded $10,000 or more as a crowd of more than 100 guests looked on at the Eastern Bank Operations Center.”Eastern Bank recognizes that non-profits need both economic assistance and business advice in these challenging economic times,” said Eastern Bank CEO Richard Holbrook. “We believe that adding an educational piece to our annual celebration will benefit these organizations for years to come, as they strive to make our communities a better place to work and live.”Prior to the ceremony, grant recipients were invited to participate in educational workshops created to provide them with the tools necessary to get them through the difficult economic times.”Too many times individual not-for-profit organizations feel like they’re isolated little islands out there so we try to bring all the islands together because they seem to share common issues, common problems and common opportunities,” Holbrook said.The focus of the EBCF is to support local organizations that provide basic human services to the residents of eastern Massachusetts. Grant recipients typically provide services including affordable housing, homelessness prevention, job readiness, family and children or human services and community health care. Flutie tossed each “Community Quarterback” recipient honored at this year’s ceremony an autographed “Community Quarterback” football, which celebrates and symbolizes its leadership.”(The award) is important because of the effect on the community that all of these individuals had,” Flutie said. “They’re out there in a philanthropic venue and basically for all their different organizations, raising money to help, and Eastern Bank is a part of that. It gives Eastern Bank an chance to touch every branch of the community which is fantastic.”He also said that Eastern Bank has been a huge supporter since the inception of his own foundation, The Doug Flutie Jr. Foundation for Autism, created in honor of his son Dougie, who has autism.”It has been a great relationship with Eastern Bank,” Flutie said. “I think it’s a good fit. It’s local, community-oriented and the commitment they have made to help in the community fits right along the lines of what we do with our foundation.”Holbrook explained the motivation for the awards.”We give back to the community and we are giving back to our customers,” he said. “We’re giving back to our employees at the same time. Eastern Bank is a mutual institution. We have three stake holders. The customers, the employees and the community. They are all interrelated and they all benefit from each other. We think if we do a better job for our customers it will be better for the community and our employees.”The grants were among the almost $2.0 million donated last year to 700 non-profit organizations by the Eastern Bank Charitable Foundation. In six years, the “Community Quarterback” program has honored more than 230 organizations with $3.8 million in grants.