Kerri, Brendan, and Sloane McGrath receiving the Angel Award.
Colin’s Joy Project is proud to share that we were the recipients of this year’s Angel Award, courtesy of one of our community partners, Julie’s Family Learning Center.
I had the pleasure of interviewing Andrea McKunes, childcare director at Julie’s. She informed me that every December they honor someone who has been extra supportive of their programs. For the year 2022, that was Colin’s Joy Project and the McGrath family.
The McGrath’s go above and beyond every year to make sure Julie’s receives the attention and the funding they need in order to continue their incredible work in the community.
A little background on Julie’s Family Learning Center
Julie’s primarily serves low-income mothers and their children, although they also provide basic education programs for everyone- men, women, and children. They offer both Zoom and in-person classes that cater to all levels of learning. Many people come to them with the goal of obtaining their GED, but they also offer life-skills classes about parenting, money management, and more. In addition, they have a workforce development sector that focuses on finding students’ jobs or helping them to apply for college classes after they get their GED.
Julie’s supports their students in all aspects of life, not just in education. They have a family advocate on site who assists with housing and SNAP benefits, and they have an entire room dedicated to donations such as diapers, clothing, and formula. They provide a weekly bus pass for their students, and they even have an on-site chef who prepares healthy meals daily.
All of this is provided free of charge, and they never turn anyone away. That’s one of the reasons organizations like Colin’s Joy Project are so essential to their continuing success. The goal of Julie’s is to build stronger families in the South Boston community, and Colin’s Joy Project is so happy to assist them in their mission.
The Angel Award
Colin’s Joy Project has been a proud sponsor of Julie’s Family Learning center since 2018, but this is the first year they’ve been honored with the Angel Award. Andrea informed me that the McGrath family has always gone above and beyond to help Julie’s, but this year their contributions were overwhelming.
One way they do this is by sponsoring a family every year for Christmas, and they encourage all of their own relatives to bring gifts for this family instead of for themselves.
They do an incredible job getting the word out about Julie’s; although it’s been around for more than 50 years, Colin’s Joy Project and the McGrath family have worked hard to spread the word about their services in order to help them connect with many families throughout South Boston. They’ve raised a ton of awareness about the nonprofit, and they are always looking for ways to connect them to other similar organizations in the community, such as the MOMS club of South Boston.
The Library
Most recently, Kerri and Brendan have been working with Julie’s to revamp a space on their first floor that was formally called the “library”. The library has had a lot of wear and tear over the years, and when Kerri and Brendan toured the facility, the team at Julie’s shared that it wasn’t even in use anymore. They all agreed that this would be a great room to revamp in Colin’s name to support Julie’s members.
Kerri and Brendan have been working with the members at Julie’s to come up with a design for a space that would be dedicated to families. Currently, there is nowhere in the building where moms can just be with their kids- ironically, for an organization dedicated to helping families, they didn’t have a space that was designated specifically for families to be together. The McGrath’s decided that needed to change. They brought in formal design architects from Dyer Brown, Maggie Mitchell and Katie Moulder, who have graciously agreed to take on this project pro-bono.
Thanks to a generous donation from Colin’s Joy Project, the space will be completely redone in bright colors and patterns that are inviting and engaging. It will be filled with books so that it is truly a library. They hope to use it as a space where moms can read to their kids, and where they can occasionally host guest readers. Oftentimes moms come in with their children prior to the start of classes, and they need somewhere to hang out. Thanks to the McGrath family, they’ll be able to hang out in the library where they can work on bonding with their children while simultaneously promoting their literacy skills.
We encourage you to learn more about how you can support Julie’s Family Learning Center, as well as all of our other community partners!
Click here to find out more information about our ongoing projects in the South Boston community.