Jericho Road Worcester

History

Jericho Road Worcester (JRW) was launched in June 2009 as a cooperative venture spearheaded by the First Baptist and First Unitarian Churches in Worcester. Social action leaders of both churches created a joint Steering Committee which worked for over a year to set the stage for launching. They surveyed their congregations regarding parishioner interest and capacity to provide expertise to nonprofits and received close to 150 positive responses. Consequently, the Steering Committee conducted a focus group with 15 leaders from the Worcester nonprofit sector to determine their interest in JRW's offerings and model. A vast majority of nonprofit directors essentially replied, "How soon can you start?"

Staff

In June JRW hired Deborah Wild as a part-time Program Director. Deb has 30 years of nonprofit leadership experience and a lifetime commitment to volunteerism. Deb has been a Peace Corps Volunteer and an Associate Peace Corps Director. She has consulted with several national volunteer organizations including Youth Service America, Americorps, and Oxfam America. Deb brings to JRW a passion for raising nonprofit capacity in tangible and measurable ways.

What's Going on in Worcester

Jericho Road Worcester began to provide services in the Worcester area a little over a year ago and so far, so great! To date we've initiated 25 projects with organizations including Girls, Inc., Boys and Girls Club, Pernet Family Service, Dismas Family Farm, Family Assistance Center of Central Mass., Lutheran Social Services, Oak Hill CDC, Worcester Center for Crafts, Mass. Audubon, and the Worcester Animal Rescue League. Several nonprofits are awaiting matches with skilled volunteers. Please help us find talented folks who are open to working on short-term, high-impact projects. To get involved, please email Deb Wild at dwild@jerichoroadproject.org.

• Community Health Link needs a Website Designer to help update and simplify their site.

• The Boys and Girls Club needs to finalize a Facilities Maintenance Plan. They seek a detail oriented person familiar with construction and maintenance protocols to help develop a process for keeping their state of the art club house in top form.
• A start up wants to add people with marketing and fund development experience to their board.
• A well known nonprofit needs to create a leadership donor campaign to help them expand the range and impact of their programs and services.

Featured Volunteer

Jean Theurkauf has donated hundreds of hours of skilled service to JRW and to her client: Pernet Family Service. Jean is partnering with several JRW volunteers to create a customized client intake protocol and database for Pernet. The project is complex because it affects every aspect of the organization. All staff have had a say in how the database should be structured and be able to do. The project has required Jean to re-think assumptions and plans on numerous occasions. When the database "goes live," Pernet staff can share information in time-effective ways that can result in costs savings and increased efficiencies. States Sheilah Dooley, Executive Director at Pernet, "Jean has been fantastic and fun to work with… she has kept us enthused about a very complicated project. She is unassuming and never over-bearing. She is a genius when it comes to databases. She calls us 'heroes' for doing the family support work that we do. However, if it was not for people like Jean, we would not get very far. She has been instrumental in moving us along in our capacity to serve families." Thank you, Jean, for your dedication, smarts, accountability and team spirit.

JRW Steering Committee
Jeanine Beratta
Mary Frandsen
Tom McKibbens
Richard McNally
Jean Perkins
Joan Russo
David Rynick
Tom Schade
Philip vanderWilden
David Story
David Siddle
Deb Wild

Advisory Committee
John Budd
William Densmore
Harry Dewey
Steve Loring
Mary Melville
Dusty Miller
Lisa Piehler