Women's Foundation of Boston Awards WLP $25,000 to Expand Programming

We are thrilled to be collaborating with the Women’s Foundation of Boston (WFB) and economically empowering women in Greater Boston. 

Women’s Lunch Place will be leveraging grant funding from WFB to renovate an existing room at our shelter and advocacy center into a new Workforce Development Center.

The space will be equipped with computers, office furniture, a projector and A/V equipment, and sliding partition walls that will allow us to modify the space as needed. While we already provide workforce development programming in our Resource Center, the new space will allow for an even greater focus on increasing the economic independence of our guests. 

As the female-dominated hospitality and foodservice industries have been devastated by the pandemic––the "She-cession" has been well-documented––many of the women we serve are looking at new career opportunities for the first time. There are already a variety of intensive workforce development programs throughout Greater Boston which can act as effective pathways toward economic empowerment. However, we have found that an increasing subset of our guests are pre-contemplative (i.e., not ready for these programs), as their trauma and homeless histories have eroded their coping mechanisms and life skills. 

Our existing workforce development programming seeks to address these issues. Through our services, women can develop the skills and emotional regulation needed to successfully enter employment or into existing workforce development programs. This is particularly helpful for homeless women who lack a high school diploma and face multiple barriers such as limited English, learning disabilities, criminal records, histories of trauma, and more. 

WLP combines individualized instruction with intensive case management to address these barriers and help women further their education, complete our prerequisites program, matriculate to external programs when needed, and ultimately engage in successful job searches with the long-term goal of finding employment and greater economic stability. 

We are uniquely positioned to address job readiness as our women-only environment and highly trained staff allow us to build trusting relationships with extremely vulnerable women. Thanks to the support of WFB, our community of homeless women will be able to further develop the skills and emotional regulation needed to successfully enter employment or existing workforce development programs.