Today, the Essex County Community Foundation (ECCF) on behalf of the NiSource Charitable Foundation, announced $1 million in one-year grants to support nonprofit organizations in the communities of Andover, Lawrence and North Andover.
Published in North of Boston Business March 24, 2021
They were the first to close and will be among the last to fully reopen. Theaters, performance venues, live music spots, museums and galleries: they make our communities more vibrant, they help drive the local economy, and they serve as epicenters of creative expression, cultural representation and togetherness.
Prior to the arrival of COVID-19, some parts of Essex County were thriving. The overall unemployment rate – which had been declining steadily since the Great Recession – was 3% and Essex County was on the tail end of a 21% spike in job growth.
Since the start of the COVID-19 health pandemic, expressions of xenophobia and anti-Asian sentiment have run rampant and gone largely unchecked across the country.
Food insecurity is among the challenges most exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. According to Feeding America, the nation’s largest domestic hunger relief organization, Essex County’s overall food insecurity rate has increased 72% from 2018-2020, while the child rate has skyrocketed by 123%. Right now in Essex County, 20.6% of children don’t know where they’ll get their next meal.
A 13-member committee made up of a diverse cross-section of local leaders is joining Essex County Community Foundation (ECCF) in implementing a new strategy designed to advance racial equity and racial justice within the organization and throughout Essex County.
Strolling down Massachusetts’ Main Streets now looks very different than it did a year ago. Foot traffic is down. Online shopping and curbside pickup have largely replaced local, in-person experiences. And all across the state, small businesses that once breathed life and vitality into our communities — some of them for decades — are shuttering their storefronts for good.
ECCF donors learn about the unique challenges facing nonprofits battling homelessness By Michelle Xiarhos Curran, ECCF Communications Writer When the COVID-19 pandemic began last March, nonprofits supporting Essex County’s homeless population were blindsided....
Essex County Community Foundation, a $115+ million grantmaking organization serving the 34 cities and towns of Essex County, is pleased to announce that Georgetown resident Megan Burnett has joined ECCF as the foundation’s new donor stewardship and services assistant.
Merrimack Valley photographers, writers and people seeking calm have probably found themselves at some point on the edge of the Spicket River in Methuen, where Essex County’s only natural waterfall – which once powered 19th century textile mills – drops 100 feet and tumbles over a bed of rocks on its way to the Merrimack in Lawrence.
500 Cummings Center, Suite 5450
Beverly, Massachusetts 01915
ECCF's Tax ID # 04-3407816