Cardinal Cushing Centers

Dear all,

The past few weeks have been incredibly challenging for everyone. Thank you for your support, patience and understanding as we respond to an unprecedented situation, one that most of us have never seen in our life times and have only read about in our history books.

 

At Cardinal Cushing Centers, we have been meeting everyday, sometimes multiple times a day, in order to respond to the changes in guidelines from our local, state, national government, and the CDC. We have been in conversations with the Department of Developmental Services, the Massachusetts Department of Elementary & Secondary Education, maaps (The Massachusetts Association of 766 Approved Private Schools), state and local officials, our own dedicated Board of Directors – the list goes on.

 

While we have had to be nimble and make temporary changes to our operations in order to prioritize the health and safety of our community, which I will summarize for you below, I write to you today with great hope. The Cushing Community, especially our dedicated staff, has truly stepped up to the plate with care and compassion. During these stressful times our conversations were filled with the utmost concern for the vulnerable population we support. Seeing and being reminded of just how strong the threads that tie us together are now, I have no doubts that when we get through to the other side of this, our organization will be there, just as strong as ever, to carry on our work and our mission.

 

As is the case with many businesses and organizations, we are going to need financial support in order to remain operational through extended closures, fully recover, and to have our bank accounts match the strength and resiliency of our community. To that end, we have created The Cushing Fund. Any gift that you can give at this time, no matter the size, will truly make an impact. We are grateful for your consideration of a gift during this challenging time.

 

The situation we are in right now is most certainly fluid and ever changing. Here are the changes we have made in response:

• We have closed all of our retail shops to the public.
• We have closed all day programs for our adults (South Shore Industries and Life Opportunities Unlimited) as well as our Braintree St. Coletta Day School and Hanover day school program. We remain open for our student and adult residents.
• We have suspended any outside visitors.
• We have increased sanitation in all of our buildings, especially in any areas of operation that remain open.
• We are deploying day staff where we can to meet the needs of our residential department as well as sanitation needs across the organization.
• We have switched from limited hours to appointments in order to increase access to the Cushing Cares Food Bank.
• We have postponed our Staff Recognition event until October 29th.
• We cancelled our St. Patrick’s Day Dinner & Auction and are rescheduling our graduating students’ Trip of a Lifetime to Disney World to a date later this fall. Thanks to the generosity of our sponsors for this event, including South Shore Bank, we still raised funds that will help support the trip this year.
• We have cancelled our Springtime Gala and we will honor Dolly DiPesa and The Raymond Family in 2021.

 

In order to stay up-to-date with all that we are doing at Cushing, we have created a page on our website that also includes recommendations from the CDC as well as resources for families. We encourage you to check back as we monitor the current climate and continue to make any additional changes as needed.

 

Thank you for your continued support. It means the world to us.

 

Be well,

 

Michelle Markowitz

Interim President & CEO