LYNN — District Six Congressman Seth Moulton stopped by two local nonprofits, LEO inc., and the New American Association of Massachusetts (NAAM) on Tuesday, to discuss the organizations’ points of progress and ongoing needs.
At 11 a.m., Moulton sat before a class of children in a classroom at LEO’s early education center and read them a picture book called “I Need a Hug.” When the story was done and the children gave Moulton their drawings, LEO inc. ‘s Director of Development and Communications Lisa McFadden and LEO CEO Birgitta Damon discussed their plans for expanding their social and behavioral specialist workforce.
“Summer of 2019, right before the pandemic, we hired our first social emotional behavior specialist, who’s now manager of that department,” Damon said. “We had four staff members over the period of the pandemic, but honestly, we could now see in every single classroom, a social emotional behavior specialist. It would be so beneficial.”
Damon added that the organization works with parents and caregivers to address their children’s social or emotional needs. She said that through family service workers and direct communication with families, the organization is working to support disabled children, or children who are struggling with problems at home.
“We work together with the parents as well, which is great, it’s really strong,” Damon said. “We have a lot of foster parents as well, and work together with the family to determine what their plan is for their family, and if the child has a disability, the parent may just be like ‘how do I advocate for my child?’ ”
LEO inc, a nonprofit that aims to assist children and families with early education services, health guidance, and well-being initiatives such as assisted home energy solutions and weatherization, received $3 million in American Rescue Plan (ARPA) funding this summer to assist with their plans of reconstructing their 156 Broad St. location, a $17.5 to $18 million project.
After Moulton’s visit to LEO’s Early Education Center, he met with Damon and McFadden at their Broad Street location, discussing the organization’s plans and post-pandemic struggles.
“Specifically about utility and people assistance, we continue to see an unprecedented increase in new applications,” McFadden said. “I think we were all hoping that the pandemic was going to be, you know, this steep but quick fight, and then we would get back to normal. But on this day, a year ago, we were paying about $2.79 A gallon for fuel,” McFadden said.
“We have three floors — it’s really solid, it’s about a 30,000 square foot building. So we will have 15 classrooms, three beautiful playgrounds. It’ll just be an entire campus,” McFadden added, talking about the organization’s plan for the building.
Moulton thanked the LEO officials, adding that he would do what he could to assist the organization with securing additional funding, before he left to visit NAAM, an organization focused on helping refugees and immigrants with employment, education, and integration into American society.
Moulton introduced and passed the WELCOMED Act in 2021, which provides Afghan refugees on humanitarian parole with the benefits they need to start a life in the U.S. In a conference room filled with NAAM staff members, Executive Director Natasha Soolkin broke down the numbers and demographics of her organization’s enrolled immigrants and refugees.
“For the last six months, we served about 700 people all together, across different programs — employment, classes, citizenship,” Soolkin said. “About 30 percent of people come from Afghanistan, probably 20 percent, from Haiti, people have been coming from Ukraine and from Ukraine, they’re coming in big numbers.”
After talking to an Afghan immigrant, who told Moulton that the program helped him secure a driver’s license, along with a lab inspection position at a biotech company, Moulton expressed his support for the program, and its work toward immigration reform.
I really love what you’re doing. I mean, we take a lot of pride in our immigration work. I get requests from all over the country because we’re so well known as an office for doing this well, thanks to you. It’s people like you who make it happen every day. I really love what you’re doing,” Moulton said.
Anthony Cammalleri can be reached at [email protected]
