14th Annual Fundraiser and Fall Appreciation Event a Success!

On behalf of the Milford Youth Commission and staff, we would like to thank everyone who attended, donated and supported to make the 14th Annual Fundraiser successful, raising $7,000 for Youth Center programs! The event was held on Friday, September 13th at CraftRoots Brewing from 6-9 PM and included great beer and food, live music, raffles and community awards! The Youth Commission selects businesses, individuals and/or organizations each year for our Community and Individual Appreciation Awards! The awardees are recognized for their dedication and support of the Youth Center! The 2024 Community Appreciation Awards were presented to ALAVI & BRAZA, P.C., Amazon Sort Center – BOS4, and to The Health Foundation of Central Massachusetts!

The first award was presented to the law offices of ALAVI & BRAZA, P.C.! Every December, our MYC team is very busy organizing thousands of donated Holiday gifts that we pick up, organize and distribute to our families! It really is one of the most amazing times of year to see how the community steps up and supports the Center and our members over the holidays but it’s exhausting! A few years back, after finalizing this annual process, we received a card in the mail. An unsolicited $5,000 donation from Ali and Gina with a note…”Keep up the great work”! This generosity has continued every year since, amounting to 10’s of thousands of dollars of donations for the to the Center! We are so thankful for their generosity. Thank you, Gina and Ali Alavi for attending the event to accept the awards!

The second Community Appreciation Award was presented to Amazon-BOS4! Over the years, we have been very lucky to have Amazon support the Center in various ways but the most meaningful impact was felt during COVID. When the Center was closed for a short period during the beginning of COVID, Ariea Bryan or Amazon, would drop van loads of returned items from Amazon to the Center, in her personal van! In an effort to help the community, while we were not open for our normal programs, we decided that we would organize and distribute the items that we could! We were able to utilize a portion for the donations for raffles and program supplies but a majority of them we redistributed to the community. We would bring food items to the school, pet supplies to shelters and misc. supplies to seniors in the community and even did birthday deliveries with the help of the local police to our Youth Center members! As a result of this, we were also recognized by Amazon with a $25,000 NeighborGood donation to help support a future music and multipurpose media room at the Center! It was our absolute honor to present Ariea Bryan, now Youth Commission member as well and Alyssa Nace of Amazon with their award!

Our third and final Community Appreciation Award of the night was presented to The Health Foundation of Central Massachusetts! The Milford Youth Center received a $115,115 grant from The Health Foundation of Central Massachusetts in 2022. The Center was one of 11 organizations to be awarded funding through its Activation Fund program, which aims to support one-year projects that will have a longstanding benefit to the community. This grant allowed for the replacement of the steam unit heating systems for the gym and basement areas of the facility to address any remaining air quality issues and help increase operating efficiency. We were so proud to present Dr. Katie Lee and Amie Shei from the Foundation with their award!

We would also like to recognize some special guests who attended the event and/or gave out citations to the awardees including State Representative Brian W. Murray and Select Board member Paul Mazzuchelli. Thank you to all our Board Members who attended and/or helped to make the event a success, including: Brendan Rickert, Stacy Darling, Chuck Calagione, Darlene Dulude, John Dulude, Ariea Bryan, Jason Vaz, Christine Crean, Gail Jussaume, Jonathan Capece, Bill Farrell, Christina Wiech, Martin Montoya and Courtney Walsh!

We would also like to thank The Pub Kings, for allowing us to use their microphone and speaker for the awards! Thank you to the Big Y of Milford for donating a $25 gift card to purchase food for the event and to all of our Board members for donating appetizers and desserts for the event! Finally, thank you to the entire CraftRoots staff for your amazing hospitality and for arranging a food truck, for additional food options to purchase! Thank you to our MYC staff (Emily, Joanna, Jen, Maddy, Sam, Lauren and Antoniyo) and volunteers for all the help with the event too!

We would like to thank every individual, organization and/or businesses that contributed to this fundraiser with a monetary donation and/or raffle prize! Thank you to the following individuals or businesses who made a monetary donation: Carolyn Cooney CBA Carolyn Cooney & Associates, KPX Countertops Inc, Mass Correction Officers Federated Union, The Health Foundation of Central Massachusetts, Butter’s House, Peter Lanciano, Chuck Calagione, Cloud Solutions, Inc., Pam Hunter, Clare Comaschi, Ladd-Patrick Fagerson and Danielle King.

Thank you to the following individuals and/or businesses who helped us complete 50 raffles, valued at over $6,000 worth of prizes: The Ward Family, Craftroots Brewing, Boston Beer Co.(DogFish Head Brewery), E-Z Way Car Wash, Emily Stienstra, Jen Ward, Stacy Darling, Chuck Calagione, Darlene Dulude, John Dulude, Ariea Bryan, Gail Jussaume, Jonathan Capece, Bill Farrell, Christina Wiech, Martin Montoya, Courtney Walsh, Judy Tusino, The GYM Milford, Lowes, JAX Seafood, Artiste Hair Studio, Tree House Brewing Company, Stephanie Sidebottom and Breeze Airways! Finally, thank you Imperial Cars for lending us a truck to bring over all the items (Thank you to Carlos Benjamin and Jay Vaz or the Facility Department for helping us bring them all over)! Thank you to Darlene and John Dulude for helping us with packaging the raffles for us!

Finally, we would also like to thank one of our staff members from our YouthWorks program, Antoniyo who made an amazing speech at the event! Antoniyo grew up coming to the Center as a young child and we are so proud of the young adult that he has become. He eventually joined us as a part time-staff for both our summer camp and afterschool program, through the YouthWorks program for the last three years. Antoniyo was a 2024 Milford High School graduate and is attending his first year of Worcester State! Antoniyo spoke about the hardships of growing up with a single parent and that the Center provided him resources, food and activities that he didn’t always have available to him. He looked up to staff while he was a member here and felt honored to be able to be that resource to youth attending now, being a staff himself! We are so proud of Antoniyo and thankful for the YouthWorks program!