Friends of the Middlesex Fells Awarded $100,000 Grant

The Friends of the Middlesex Fells Reservation is one of 100 local nonprofit organizations to receive a grant of $100,000 through the Cummings Foundation’s “$100K for 100” program. On May 25, 2016 the Melrose-based organization was chosen from a total of 479 applicants during a competitive review process.

The Friends of the Middlesex Fells Reservation is dedicated to the protection and harmonious use of the Fells promoting awareness, policies, and programs to honor and preserve the ecological, historical and recreational resources of this urban forest reservation.

The Friends of the Middlesex Fells Reservation will be represented by Neil O. Anderson, Executive Director, and Lindsay Beal, Board Vice-Chairperson, along with approximately 300 other guests at a June 9th reception at the TradeCenter in Woburn to celebrate the foundation’s most recent $10 million infusion into Greater Boston’s nonprofit sector. With the conclusion of this grant cycle, the Cummings Foundation has now awarded more than $140 million to local nonprofits alone.

Neil Anderson, the Friends of the Fells (the “Friends”) Executive Director stated, “We are tremendously excited and honored to receive this grant. It will enable us to expand our programming and increase our impact in ways not formerly possible, especially as it pertains to engaging youth with nature learning and environmental stewardship.”

The Friends will use the funding to further expand their Forest Learning initiatives to run year-round. They will serve elementary and middle school aged students and replicate their pilot program currently operating at Medford High School, the Mustangs of the Fells, to other area high schools including Stoneham, Malden, Melrose, and Winchester. The Mustangs of the Fells was piloted through a Medford Health Matters grant in 2015 and directly engages students in recreational and educational activity in the Fells, as well as in environmental stewardship.

The “$100K for 100” program supports nonprofits that are not only based in but also primarily serves Middlesex, Essex, and Suffolk counties. This year, the program is benefitting 41 different cities and towns within the Commonwealth.

Through this place-based initiative, the Cummings Foundation aims to give back in the area where it owns commercial buildings, all of which are managed, at no cost to the Foundation, by its affiliate Cummings Properties. Founded in 1970 by Bill Cummings of Winchester, the Woburn-based commercial real estate firm leases and manages more than $10 million square feet of space, the majority of which exclusively benefits the Foundation.

“We admire and very much appreciate the important work that nonprofit organizations like the Friends of the Fells are doing in the local communities where our colleagues and clients live and work,” said Joel Swets, the Cummings Foundation’s Executive Director. “We are delighted to support their efforts.”

This year’s diverse group of grant recipients represents a wide variety of causes, including education, homelessness prevention, elder services, healthcare, and food insecurity. Most of the grants will be paid over two to five years. The complete list of the 100 grant winners will be available on June 9th at www.CummingsFoundation.org.

Students from the Mustangs of the Fells join Dr. John Perella, Medford High School Headmaster, Caroline Colarusso, Selectwoman, Town of Stoneham, and Neil O. Anderson, Lindsay Beal, Ann Frenning-Kossuth, and Bryan Hamlin of the Friends of the Middlesex Fells Reservation Inc. to celebrate receipt of “$100K for 100” grant from the Cummings Foundation.

– Submitted by the Friends of the Middlesex Fells Reservation