Your Update. Your Impact. | |
A Note from Jay Coburn, CDP President & CEO | |
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Our supporters, Board and Advisory Council members, and staff came together on April 25th at Wellfleet Preservation Hall to attend the CDP's 32nd Annual Meeting. The event was a great celebration of our successes over the past year and provided an opportunity to hear from Ed Augustus, Massachusetts Secretary of Housing and Livable Communities. We also honored Michelle Jarusiewicz, former Provincetown Housing Director & Grant Administrator, and Kate Escher-Jacob and Lizzy Escher Kearing of ARTichoke with our annual community awards.
At the Annual Meeting we elected four new members to the CDP’s Board of Directors: Johanne Brown, Art Huge, Fran Schofield, and Anne Sigsbee. Their energy and commitment will be instrumental in shaping the CDP’s new six-year strategic plan over the next 18 months. You can read about these talented individuals in this edition of our monthly e-news. Meeting attendees also approved several changes to the organization’s bylaws designed to support a more diverse and inclusive Board of Directors.
Springtime on the Lower and Outer Cape is when our communities gather for Annual Town Meetings. Once again, there are numerous articles for consideration to advance housing production and other strategies to address the region’s affordable housing crisis and support year-round residents. You can find a summary of the articles here.
We are grateful to you – our community – for your generous support, which makes our work possible. Thanks for investing in our efforts to lead the region in creating a more diverse year-round community of people who can afford to live, work, and thrive on the Lower and Outer Cape.
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ANNUAL REPORT
With pride and gratitude, we are thrilled to share the CDP's 2023 Annual Report with you.
We wouldn't be able to achieve what we do without the generous support of our donors, volunteers, and community partners. Together, we are building an equitable community where everyone can access what matters most—a safe, affordable home, a living wage, and a sustainable life.
Thank you for supporting our efforts to help year-round residents live, work, and thrive.
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Welcome to Our New Board Members! | |
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Johanne Brown owns Mean Ptown Burgers in the Aquarium Food Court in Provincetown and is a CDP small business client. Johanne grew up in Jamaica, where her mother ran a small restaurant. In 2011, Johanne moved to Cape Cod to work in several restaurant kitchens and served as the head chef at Bayside Betsy’s in Provincetown for seven years. Motivated by her love for food, she ventured into entrepreneurship and founded Mean Ptown Burgers in Provincetown. As a CDP client, she has worked closely with Pam Andersen to help get the business off to a solid start. She is passionate and committed to building her business from the ground up by dedicating time and effort to make it successful.
Johanne lives with her husband and two children in Yarmouth.
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Arthur Huge is a Civil Engineer by training and retired in 2008 from a 40-year career in corporate leadership for three Fortune 1,000 manufacturing companies. Arthur has served in several C-suite roles at the Menasha Corporation, LTV Corporation, and Bethlehem Steel. Since retiring, he has served as a business consultant and a Corporate Director. He is currently a member of the Board of Directors of Wellfleet Preservation Hall and a member of the CDP’s Finance Committee.
Frequent visitors to the Outer Cape for many decades, Arthur and his wife Judy now divide their time between Wellfleet and Tampa, FL. His hobbies include photography, diving, sailing, fishing, and model trains.
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Fran Schofield brings decades of cross-sector experience, education, and perspective to her life, work, and nonprofit endeavors. A Massachusetts native, Fran earned a B.A. from Mount Holyoke College and studied landscape architecture at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design. Fran is a board member of several nonprofit and civic organizations on Cape Cod, including Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce, Pleasant Bay Community Boating, and the Cape Cod Climate Change Collaborative, which she co-founded and co-led for over six years. Fran is a recent past member of the Brewster Vision Planning Committee and a current board member of the Friends of Pleasant Bay and the Cape & Islands Democratic Council.
Fran is an award-winning REALTOR® with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices | Robert Paul Properties, and resides in Brewster, where she and her late husband Paul moved in 1990. Together, they raised two sons and a Golden Retriever. In her free time, Fran enjoys walking, biking, kayaking, sailing, golf, and reading.
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Dr. Anne Sigsbee, now retired, spent more than half her life in health care helping people, particularly the Cape Cod community. In 1993, she moved to Cape Cod with her late husband, Andy Cederbaum, and settled in Eastham to continue their medical practices. Through meeting patients of all backgrounds and volunteering at nonprofits, Anne was moved by the community's unmet needs and inspired to get involved. She hosted the Lower Cape Outreach Council annual holiday fundraiser to raise funds for short-term emergency food, clothing, and financial assistance to residents of the Cape's eight outermost towns. Later, she joined the Cape Cod Children's Place and Orleans Pond Coalition boards. Anne is a member of the Barnstable County Medical Reserve Corps and the Right Care Alliance, a grassroots coalition of clinicians, patients, and community members organizing to hold healthcare institutions accountable to communities and make patients, not profits, the heart of healthcare.
She now lives in Orleans with her husband, Cecil Newcomb, a twelfth-generation Cape Codder.
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CDP's Lower Cape Housing Institute:
Empowering elected officials and residents to bring about positive change in our communities
May is a time of renewal on the Lower and Outer Cape as businesses re-open after their winter hiatus, part-timers and workers return, and year-round residents gather for Annual Town Meetings. For over 300 years, the Lower and Outer Cape towns have utilized an “open town meeting” form of government, where the elected Select Board serves as the administrative body, making policies throughout the year, and the Town Manager directs staff to carry out those policies and decisions. Town Meeting is the legislative body of the town and residents have the opportunity to approve spending, borrowing, by-law changes, and vote on other matters concerning the municipality.
Massachusetts Secretary of Housing and Livable Communities Ed Augustus spoke at our Annual Meeting last month, emphasizing the power of community involvement in local government. At the Community Development Partnership, we're committed to educating elected officials and residents through our Housing Advocacy programs, empowering them to utilize their voices to bring about positive change in our communities.
This year’s Lower Cape Housing Institute curriculum included a Community Engagement workshop, which focused on the importance of robust community engagement strategies for towns. The session, designed for municipal officials and staff, had a dual focus.
Read more about the CDP's Lower Cape Housing Institute's Impact
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Supporting Local Business | |
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CDP's Micro-loan Program and Business Assistance:
Promoting Block & Tackle Restaurant's Growth and Sustainability
“The support we received from the CDP provided the financial stability we needed to weather the storm."
– Patrick Pokras, Block & Tackle, Wellfleet
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In Wellfleet, as you drive down Route 6, you'll find Block & Tackle, a barbecue haven born from passion and perseverance. Beth Andreoli and Patrick Pokras, the duo behind this beloved establishment, recently sat down with us to share their inspiring entrepreneurship journey and how the CDP is playing a crucial role in their success.
Patrick's journey began far from the traditional barbecue pits of the American South. As a child spending time in Sweden, he cultivated his love for outdoor cooking, sparked by memories of family gatherings around crackling fires, sometimes smoking entire pigs for family and friends. Upon returning to the States, his passion for smoking meats ignited, eventually leading him to Cape Cod.
Read more about Beth Andreoli and Patrick Pokras and Block & Tackle
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Congratulations to Our Annual Award Recipients | |
Each year, in conjunction with our annual meeting, we award three distinguished awards, the Gwen Pelletier Award for Excellence in Community Service, the Norm Edinberg Award for Excellence in Entrepreneurship, and the CDP Employee of the Year. These awards recognize and honor outstanding individuals who have left an indelible mark on the Lower and Outer Cape community through their selfless service and commitment to fostering economic diversity, entrepreneurship, and community. | |
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Congratulations to
Michelle Jarusiewicz
2024 Gwen Pelletier Award for Excellence in Community Service Award Recipient
As Provincetown's former Housing Director & Grant Administrator, Michelle has been vital in the success of Provincetown's recent initiatives to mitigate our local housing crisis. She serves as an example of what can be accomplished when a community supports the expertise and resourcefulness of a town staff person to progress on housing.
Read more about
Michelle Jarusiewicz
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Congratulations to
Kate Escher-Jacob and
Lizzy Escher Kearing
2024 Norm Edinburg Award for Excellence in Entrepreneurship Award Recipients
Sisters Kate and Lizzy are the owners of ARTichoke, the beloved mobile-turned-brick-and-mortar shop in Eastham. They have delighted their customers with creative, casual designs that reflect the spirit of Cape Cod since 2011. They represent the next generation of Cape Cod entrepreneurs who are grounded in the creative spirit of this special place and dogged in their pursuit of a successful life.
Read more about Kate Escher-Jacob and Lizzy Escher Kearing
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CDP Employee of the Year
This year's standout colleague is our Maintenance Technician, Rich Breese. Rich has helped maintain our affordable rental homes for over three years. He joined our team after retirement as an independent contractor to keep busy. We could not be more fortunate.
Rich is incredibly resourceful, dependable, flexible, and, most importantly, kind and respectful towards our residents. Many of our households face challenging situations, whether trying to survive on limited resources or dealing with disabling conditions. His caring approach makes a world of difference to our residents. We've received much great feedback about Rich. Here's just one of the dozens of positive comments our clients shared about him:
“On Thanksgiving, my stove stopped working. Rich was at my apartment within an hour with a replacement. This is just one of many examples of why he deserves this award."
– CDP Resident
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Thank you for reading and for your support. | | | | |
