Dear MYC families and community partners. I wanted to communicate with you all directly to let you all know how much we miss you all and are saddened that we cannot share our beautiful building and programs with you at this time. Due to the current COVID-19 health crisis and with guidance from the State, Town and Board of Health, we do know that it is the right thing to do for the safety and well-being of the community. Therefore, all Youth Center programs and/or events/rentals will be cancelled and/or postponed until further notice. The Center follows the same closing policies at the Milford Public Schools and/or Town Hall, therefore if the schools and/or Town Hall are closed there will be no programs held at the Youth Center. As a precaution, the Town did hire an outside vendor to sanitize a number of Town buildings, including the Youth Center. This process included spraying a sanitizing solution in each of the offices and public areas.
Katie (Asst. Director), Kathleen (Program Coordinator) and I have had to formulate a new routine, just like the rest of the community, commonwealth and country. We miss seeing our morning walkers, outside tutoring sessions, the Micheal Lisnow Respite Center and MYC Kids Play Group in the morning. We miss seeing the kids’ storm in the building at 2:15 pm, especially the first after school member who is always so excited to make it here first! We are also so sad we had to cut the annual MYC March Madness Tourney short, in which we had over 80 kids participating in. We miss seeing our volunteers and our part-time staff, many of whom are seniors and are missing out on a lot of their end of the year celebrations and/or sport teams. We miss our evening programs and rentals, from Adult Open Gym to batting cages with Milford Softball and Baseball to HOOP Crew AAU practices. We were also disappointed that we had to postpone our annual St. Pat’s Fundraiser at CraftRoots but we are determined to celebrate with you all when this time passes and it is safe to do so!
Although, the facility is not open to the public, the full-time staff are still working hard (split shifts and practicing social distancing) to allow us to continue our normal responsibilities and remain productive and creative. We have started offering virtual programming to the community with the help of our amazing volunteers and staff, who are providing daily programs via our social media and/or other online platforms. We have also been utilizing part-time staff to assist with other projects at theirhomes, like translating our rental contract in Spanish and Portuguese and making an MYC Scrapbook, something we have always wanted to create with years of newspaper clippings and photos of the Center’s rich history! We have been able to continue projects at the Youth Center, with small crews, like our
HVAC Town allocation for AC and dehumidification and a two-man crew from Consilgi Construction Co., Inc., who have almost completed our Dance Room floors, donating all the labor!
We have also been working hard organizing our entire 32,000 sq. ft. building and donating things that can benefit the community during this difficult time. Due to the generosity of Amazon and Ariea Bryan we have also been able to go through thousands of dollars’ worth of old and new donations, and distribute to those most in need at this time. We have been able to drop off 4 car loads of toiletry items, pet food and nonperishable goods to Milford High School to then be distributed to the community, through the hard work of the volunteers and staff of the Hockomock Area YMCA, Milford Public Schools and the Milford Area Humanitarian Coalition. We have also been able to create care packages and deliver them to our volunteers.
In collaboration with the Milford Board of Health and Milford TV, we will also be making mask kits to the community, with materials donated by Joann Fabrics of Milford and Home Depot of Mansfield! We have also been able to donate cat food items to the Milford Humane Society. In addition, while organizing storage closets we came across two unopened boxes of medical face masks! We immediately donated one box of 500 masks to our community partner, the Milford Regional Medical Center and another 500 masks to Brigham and Women’s Hospital and their Dana Farber unit.
Finally, we have tried to play our small role in supporting local restaurants and businesses, especially those who have also helped us in times of need for donations for fundraisers and events, including Genes Variety, Pizza Palace, Oliva’s, Pizza Chef, Red Heat Tavern, East Main Pizza and CraftRoots (off-hours)! We hope to continue this as much as we can!
Although we may not be able to welcome you all into our building and programs at this time, we are adapting to the current situation to live up to our mission and vision, virtually and remotely as much as we can: “The MYC works together with other community organizations to provide resources and opportunities for youth to make healthy decisions. The MYC works to provide local youth with the necessary activities and events that help them develop physically,
mentally, socially and emotionally through their childhood years. By providing Milford youth with these types of programs and a safe environment during the after-school hours and during our monthly events, we hope to address adolescent risk factors as well as promoting the partnership among community members to ensure a comprehensive vision and plan for the health of the youth in the town of Milford.” Together, as a community, we will get through this very precarious situation and I have hope and have confidence that we will be back stronger and more collaborative that ever! Thank you all and stay safe!