Who
You! Survivors, friends, family members, colleagues, partners, activists, volunteers, staff, interns, community members, and even your four-legged friends (on leashes) are welcome to join us.
What
Walk alongside us, in solidarity with survivors. Choose to walk in-person or walk “from anywhere.” No matter where you walk, you are showing survivors that they are not alone, and we are all in this together!
When
Sunday, April 21, 2024 | 8:30 a.m.– 12 p.m.
Where
DCR’s Constitution Beach in East Boston
Why
Help raise awareness and funds to support survivors of sexual violence. Your support helps BARCC continue to provide free, trauma-informed care to survivors. It also enables BARCC to advocate for policies and strategies that help prevent sexual violence from happening in the first place.
How
Secure your spot at the 2024 Walk for Change now by registering! You can participate as an individual or as part of a team.
Earlier this year, we received some very bad news: the owner of our building at 93–99 Bishop Allen Drive was putting it up for sale. If a commercial developer purchased the building, we knew we would have a very hard time finding a new home in Cambridge.
Then we learned that the Cambridge Redevelopment Authority (CRA) would be bidding to purchase the building so that the seven nonprofit organizations housed at 93–99 Bishop Allen Drive as tenants, including BARCC, could stay. We were ecstatic when we received word that CRA’s bid to purchase the building from Enroot, a nonprofit that had owned and run programs from the 19,548-square-foot structure since 1965, was successful.
CRA’s commitment to BARCC and all of the nonprofits at 93-99 Bishop Allen Drive is why we are honoring CRA this year as a Champion for Change at our annual Champions for Change Gala & Auction on November 1 at Marriott Copley Place.
“Our mission is to find imaginative, creative initiatives to achieve social equity and a balanced economic ecosystem,” said Tom Evans, CRA’s executive director. “Sometimes it’s hard to explain what that means, exactly, but CRA’s purchase of 93–99 Bishop Allen Drive is a great example of putting our mission into action.”
All of the tenants at “Nonprofit Row,” as 93-99 Bishop Allen Drive is affectionately known, are community service organizations that support Cambridge residents or community members, Evans explained. The building is close to public transportation, which makes it relatively easy for staff and clients to get to the building and the structure is large enough to continue to act as a base of operations for these organizations well into the future.
“Currently, there are no other buildings for sale in Cambridge that are close enough to public transportation for any of the organizations to relocate to,” Evans said. “Given the rising real estate values in central Cambridge, and other accessible locations such as Harvard, Porter, or Kendall squares, it was unlikely that another property could have been developed for the organizations at Nonprofit Row.”
For BARCC, finding another space that offered what we have—and need—at 93–99 Bishop Allen Drive would have been next to impossible. As a rape crisis center, our office must feel secure for our clients, many of whom may wish for anonymity as they seek out support. Given that we reside in a building occupied by other busy nonprofits that work with members of the public, when someone we work with enters the building it is not at all obvious that they are seeking support related to sexual harassment, assault, or abuse. Our proximity to the Red Line and the Number 1 bus is also important because major local hospitals frequently refer patients directly to us and most of them—like many of our staff and people we work with—travel to us via public transportation. Last, our contract with the state, which funds a significant portion of our work, stipulates that we must have a location in Cambridge.
Our base in Cambridge on Nonprofit Row, which has been our headquarters for many years, has been vital to the scope, scale, and effectiveness of BARCC’s work. From our Cambridge office, along with our Boston and Waltham offices, we serve 29 cities and towns—a population of approximately 4.6 million people. Our Cambridge office provides a significant value to the city of Cambridge as a center of extensive free services as well as opportunities for volunteers. The charitable business use of 93–99 Bishop Allen Drive has ensured a stable lease at a cost we can afford.
CRA’s purchase of the building will enable our continued operations and sustain the other nonprofits located at 93–99 Bishop Allen Drive with similar impact to Cambridge residents, neighboring communities, and the nation: the Algebra Project, Cambridge Camping, Cambridge Community Foundation, Next Step Fund, the Sustainable Business Network, and Enroot, who will remain in the building after the sale.
“A lot of credit for this has to go to the city of Cambridge, including the city manager’s office and the Cambridge City Council,” Evans said. “And of course none of this would have been possible without Enroot. They worked closely with us to make this deal happen and as a result the entire city of Cambridge will benefit.”
We are incredibly grateful to CRA. We hope you can join us November 1 as we celebrate CRA as a Champion for Change and thank them for the critical support they have given us in carrying out our mission to end sexual violence through healing and social change.
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