Raise Up Massachusetts is conducting a petition drive to raise the minimum wage and ensure that more Massachusetts workers can care for themselves and their family members when they are sick.

According to their website, when workers and their families can’t afford the basics, they aren’t able to spend money in their communities to keep the economy growing. That’s why Raise Up Massachusetts is fighting to require employers to offer earned sick time and raise the minimum wage.

To learn more about this important initiative or to join the campaign visit Raise Up Massachusetts on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/RaiseupMA

I am pleased and honored to be joining the CTI team as Chief Program Officer, and to serve an agency whose historic mission and legacy are more important now than when community action agencies were first developed in 1964.  You all do such incredibly important and vital work to assist low income people, and I look forward to learning from all of you as I enter the agency and apply my experience and skills to do as much as we can with each dollar that we receive.

I come to CTI after serving for twelve and a half years as Director of Residential Services for YOU, Inc., a large multi-service child welfare agency in Worcester serving northern and southern Worcester County communities.  Similar to CTI, YOU, Inc. is a large multi-service agency that provides a continuum of care for families and children.  And so, I appreciate and value that each program or service can do individually, but also how much more effective coordinated service delivery can be for the people we serve.

My career in social services administration is broad and diverse, and I have managed service systems both in the public and non-profit sectors, and have planned, implemented and managed service delivery for children, families and adults facing the challenges of poverty, mental illness and developmental disabilities, as well as individuals involved with the criminal and juvenile justice systems.

The foundations of my career, however, began here in Lowell, first as a Northeastern “co-op” student, then in the Planning Department of the Lowell City Development Authority and finally as a case manager working in a store front on Middlesex Street funded by federal employment and training funds that were administered through CTI.  So, I am very pleased to return to Lowell and the Merrimack Valley to offer my skills, enthusiasm and commitment to Community Teamwork.