United New Bedford announces Adopt A Block program

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It is set to launch this month

The city of New Bedford contains a high proportion of households at or below the federal poverty line. The US Census Bureau reported in 2013 that an individual poverty level was $11,888, and the percentage of 23.5% of the population in New Bedford was living below the poverty line in 2013. The distribution of low income houses are concentrated among particular neighborhoods in the city. As a result, some local communities lack the resources to contribute to neighborhood upkeep. They also often lack access to or knowledge of the wealth of services available to the community. The high rates of poverty are strongly correlated with higher crime rates, low levels of educational attainment, and challenges with housing quality and access. High migrant populations that are non-English speakers, who may distrust government agencies, add an extra layer of barriers to accessing services.

United New Bedford’s Adopt A Block program addresses these issues by providing targeted responses at the grassroots level from trained, local, and multilingual volunteers. Specifically we prioritize one block at a time, with our volunteers working with the community residents to clean public spaces and provide food staples at a time in the month were budgets are typically stretched. In the process, as trust is built and volunteers learn more about the needs of the residents, volunteers can act as a trusted facilitator to help connect residents with services.

By building in community pride and investing in the community’s access to knowledge of service, this project will provide a lasting improvement to the community’s well-being. We are looking for volunteers and sponsors to help clean and build up our city one block at a time.

Adopt A Block will launch this month, November 2015, and we are asking for donations of: trash bags, trash pickers, non-latex gloves, grocery store gift cards (Price Rite or Market Basket), toiletries, food pantry items (e.g. milk, bread, eggs and cereal) rubber gloves for cleaning and bags for groceries.

If you are looking to get involved by being a sponsor of this project, donating or volunteering, please contact President and Founder of United New Bedford, Edwin Cartagena at 617.913.2192 or message us on our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/unitednbma.


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