Office of the Executive Vice President, Finance and Administration

Appendix A

Example List-Brandeis University Community Benefits

Recent Information

  1. Sample Points of Impact or Stories from this year
    • Donated 180 N95 respirators (tighter fitting and more protective than standard surgical masks) to the Waltham Fire Department
    • Opened our COVID Booster clinics to the community.
    • A group of Brandeis students raised money for the Waltham Jewish Family & Children Services Family Table. The students raised money by letting the Brandeis community pie them in the face, filling plates with shaving cream instead of using real pies. Around 200 Brandeis community members pied the Brandeis student group, raising close to $600. The students turned half of the proceeds into food of greatest need including stuffing, crackers, canned fish, raisins, and vegetables. The other half of the proceeds was donated directly to the Family Table to support and sustain the operation.
  2. Waltham Group
    • Created an alumni network with over 4,000 alum who continue to support our students and community efforts.
    • Collected 163 pints of blood which saved more than 489 lives
    • Run 5 days a week ESL conversations, tutoring, and programming to support adult ESL learners at the Library
    • Average 55,000 hours of service per year
  3. Roses in Concrete Program
    • A powerful leadership and mentoring program for Brandeis and Waltham BIPOC Youth. Here is an article.
  4. Rich/Collins Community Leadership & Fellowship Program
    1. The Rich/Collins Community Leadership and Impact Fellowship (R/C CLIF) is a mini-grant program that has two central purposes:
      • To expand Brandeis’ students’ engagement with and service to the greater Waltham-Boston area, and
      • To strengthen students’ leadership capacity.
    2. Select program examples
      • Chase Malone ‘24/Waltham YMCA- Forever Smiles-Intergenerational disparities in low-income communities adversely affect the physical and oral health of many individuals. With a lack of government support and limited access to dental care, there is a need for multicultural preventive care and education. In partnership with the Waltham YMCA, Chase hopes to spread awareness of and dismantle oral health disparities in low-income BIPOC communities through youth education and community engagement. He will hold a series of workshops encompassing different age cohorts that target various oral health related issues. The program will conclude with a panel of BIPOC dental professionals in order to educate future healthcare professionals on public health limitations and inspire them to work and provide care to underrepresented communities.
      • Delaine Gneco De La Cruz ‘22/Waltham Boys and Girls Club- Artistic Transformation Learning Advocacy (ATLA)- Waltham low-income youth of color are disproportionately impacted by a variety of systemic social issues and often lack the resources to express and advocate for themselves through art. Through the artistic mediums of photography, poetry, film and dance, ATLA’s primary goal is to create an interdisciplinary journey toward a community engagement social justice goal. Delaine will partner with the Keystone Program at the Waltham Boys & Girls Club and Waltham Trailblazers from Waltham High School in order to provide workshops where students will learn how to employ arts as a platform for tackling social issues. Students will engage with these issues through performing and visual art workshops, hands-on projects, artists talks, critical dialogues, and discussions.
  5. Overview-Brandeis is committed to continuing to be a good partner with the city:
  • Brandeis has 40 community partnerships with over 1,000 volunteers. This is the result of a student-run volunteer program that many of you are familiar with - The Waltham Group. It was established in 1966 and continues today, stronger than ever.
  • Brandeis is also an employer in the community. Nearly 300 of our employees are residents of Waltham. [281 to be exact.]
  • Our police work well together. From our experience and perspective, Brandeis Public Safety has a good working relationship with Waltham Police. The two departments are well-coordinated and have developed a variety of partnerships such as our officer liaison program, community patrols, department training opportunities, and Memorandum of Understanding (MOU's) outlining responsibilities and coordination between the two departments. The respective chiefs frequently speak with one another on various safety-related matters.
  • Residents of Waltham have a number of ways to engage with the university. On the positive side, there’s the Rose Art Museum and a lineup of sporting events they can attend. If residents have issues, they can reach out to us via the web where we have a form set up especially for the community, or they can contact Brandeis Public Safety.

Historic Information from Waltham Group 50th Anniversary (2016-17)

  1. Waltham Group 50th Anniversary
    • We celebrated 50 years of partnership with the City of Waltham. Festivities included a gala, historical timeline, a fundraising campaign which raised nearly $20,000 to support programs in Waltham and a variety of direct service projects.
    • Some of the local charities include:
      • American Red Cross
      • Community Day Center of Waltham
      • Greater Waltham ARC
      • Healthy Waltham
      • Jewish Family and Children’s Center
      • More than Words
      • Prospect Hill Community Foundation
      • Waltham Boys and Girls Club
      • Waltham Fields Community Center
      • Waltham Public Schools
    • Random Tidbits of WG volunteers over the years
      •  Served 15,000 granola bars to kids in afterschool programs
      • Tied 6,250 shoe laces
      • Provided 93,000 cans of food to those in need
      • Helped solve more than 75,000 math problems
      • Collected enough blood through drives to save 37,200 lives

Under the auspice of the Waltham Group, our students provided approximately 40,000 hours of service to Waltham the past academic year. Some of the notable programs include

Brandeis worked closely with the City of Waltham, Bentley University and other organizations to transform an unused day care center into a new 5,000 square foot community center at Prospect Hill Terrance last fall. Brandeis volunteers assist with ESL classes, an Early Literacy Program, a Teen Program, a Community Garden and a five-day-a-week after-school program. All free of charge.

  • Waltham Group runs Junior Brandeis Achievers at Plympton Elementary School and Stanley Elementary School. Waltham High School students serve as mentors alongside Brandeis students to provide weekly after-school educational and social programming on topics such as science, dance, theater, creative arts, creative writing, etc.
  • Brandeis Black Student Organization runs BeSoEducated101 at Waltham High School. This is a college access and prep program for low income and minority high school students. There is a first-year student on campus this year who graduated from this program.
  • Waltham Group runs a General Tutoring Program that offers one hour of free tutoring on a subject of choice to school-aged youth. There are approximately 150 matches in this program.
  • Brandeis Waltham Group runs Afternoon Enrichment and Language and Cultural Enrichment. Fifty youth come to Brandeis after-school on Thursdays for 2 hours of educational programming and one-to-one tutoring. This program, like all others are free of charge.