Photo | Courtesy of United Way of Central Massachusetts
Tim Garvin, president & CEO of the United Way of Central Massachusetts, in Worcester
Updated: March 30, 2020
Viewpoint
Now is the time for community
By Tim Garvin
It seeped into my being – community.
It started as I was a four-year-old watching my mom make beef barley soup, then delivering it to our neighbor Mr. Eaton, because he was ill.
As an eight-year-old, living overseas, I watched the telephone tree as one mom called another to report that Faro’s Market had a shipment of Oreo's.
As a teen, for three years I watched my dad invite every family on our street over during a Sunday afternoon in the fall. My dad was a street captain for United Way. His message was simple and inspiring. “Here is what we are donating. I ask all of you to do the same. Thanks. Now let’s watch some football.”
I did not realize it at the time, but my parents were giving me lessons in the importance of community: how we help out each other, we share in times of bounty and in times of challenge, we work together.
Working in community, working in the nonprofit sector became my life’s work – at my local YMCA, in the Peace Corps, and now at the United Way of Central Massachusetts.
Every day for the past 14 years here in Worcester, I have seen beautiful examples of community. It is a group of people organized as Amor Para Puerto Rico to ensure those displaced because of Hurricane Maria were cared for. It is a group of students at South High Community School volunteering and learning at Andy’s Attic, all the while operating a clothes pantry. It is a banker, a lawyer, a chemist, a business person, a machinist, an educator – all serving together on the board of a local nonprofit, setting policy and strategy to help the community. It is community, and it is beautiful.
In the past two weeks, community has become more than just a word, it is both noun and verb.
The coronavirus is affecting all of us. And in extraordinary times, extraordinary actions are required. Worcester Together was born.
Worcester Together is a powerful partnership between the City of Worcester, the Greater Worcester Community Foundation and the United Way of Central Massachusetts. Worcester Together is effectively coordinating community-wide fundraising and co-managing and co-administering grant making. It includes businesses and corporations, nonprofits, family foundations, the clergy, media, residents, organized labor, and elected officials. There is a response team working to coordinate resources and address gaps in such areas as food, housing and shelter, education and youth development, health and mental health services.Best of all are the stories of giving and of hope: Temporary emergency shelters are in place and operating; emergency child care services for front-line workers and first responders are open; armies of volunteers are organized to support and deliver food; students from the UMass Medical School have become the collectors of personal protective equipment for first responders.
Watching this massive collective effort, I realize again Worcester is the Heart of the Commonwealth because of the great compassion demonstrated by so, so many.
Tim Garvin is president and CEO of the United Way of Central Massachusetts.
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