Dear friends,

Last fall, I had the pleasure of meeting in-person with a number of prospective grantee partners for the first time since joining The Lenny Zakim Fund in June 2020. Over the span of six weeks, I spent numerous hours in my car driving to site visits in communities such as Framingham, Gloucester, Hyde Park, New Bedford, Roxbury, Somerville, and Worcester. On more than one occasion, while on my way to or from a site visit, I found myself driving past the location of a current or former grantee partner and saying to myself, "How great would it be if LZF had a map of our current and former grantee partners."

The LZF Grantee Partner Map (pictured above), is an interactive map recently created by the LZF staff showing the locations of most of the nearly 400 nonprofit organizations and programs The Fund has proudly partnered with since 1995. The following are a few features of the LZF Grantee Partner Map:

I am excited to share this LZF Grantee Partner Map with the LZF community. It is my sincere hope that whether you are a grantee partner, donor, or friend, you find the map to be a useful tool in learning about the many amazing grassroots organizations and programs who are working to advance social, economic, and racial justice in communities throughout Massachusetts.

Healing from the Inside Out is FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.

The Boston Foundation is within walking distance of the Arlington (Green Line) and Back Bay (Orange Line) T stations. Parking is also available at nearby parking garages.

Armand Coleman is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Transformational Prison Project (TPP), whose mission is to provide spaces where those who have been harmed and those who have done the harming can come together and engage in dialogue—to build understanding and empathy toward those who have been victims of violent crime. TPP is committed to understanding individual harms and the systemic harms that affect communities, more specifically communities of color.

TPP was founded in 2013 in MCI-Norfolk, Massachusetts’ largest prison, which houses the nation’s oldest population of men serving life sentences. TPP was birthed from the experiences of Armand and a small group of his fellow inmates who were also serving life sentences. It was during their exploration of the meaning of restorative justice that they found it to be a healing and transformational process and believed that other incarcerated men and women could benefit. TPP is a former grantee partner of The Lenny Zakim Fund having been a grant recipient from 2018 to 2022. Click here to read Armand's full bio.

Ruth Rollins is the Executive Director and Founder of We Are Better Together Warren Daniel Hairston Project (WAB2G), an organization that connects women and girls affected by homicide and incarceration to interrupt the cycles of violence and victimization, foster healing, and promote unity while challenging systems. 

WAB2G was founded in 2017, after the murder of Ruth’s son, Danny Hairston, and the incarceration of her second son. She experienced the grief, shame, and stigma of losing a child and being a parent of children causing disorder in the community. Ruth realized that addressing the trauma of her past is essential to the healing process and though there were services available for homicide victim families (survivors), no services were available to mothers who lost loved ones to incarceration. Ruth found her voice and founded the organization to honor her son's legacy, engage and empower mothers on both sides of gun violence in the healing process. She is committed to using her expertise in service to help mothers heal and ensure that no families have to suffer in silence. Click here to read Ruth's full bio.

Steven W. Tompkins, a member of the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department since 2002, was appointed to serve as the Sheriff of Suffolk County on January 22, 2013 by Governor of Massachusetts, Deval Patrick. He was subsequently elected Sheriff in 2014 and has been twice re-elected in 2016 and 2022. As Sheriff, Tompkins manages all operations at the Suffolk County House of Correction, the Nashua Street Jail, and the Civil Process Division. In addition to providing care, custody and rehabilitative support for inmates and pre–trial detainees, Tompkins also oversees a management, security and administrative staff of over 1,000.

The Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department offers inmates a variety of social service, educational, vocational, medical, and spiritual programs. One such program is the Family Matters program, which was created in 2015 at the Suffolk County House of Correction to assist inmates and their families in working toward positive relationships that strengthen the family as a unit. The goal of the program is to re-unify inmates with their children and loved ones while incarcerated and connect the families to support services in the community. Click here to read Sheriff Tompkins' full bio.

THEY DID IT! Last Monday, the married, dynamic-duo of Ben and Katie Stepansky successfully completed their first marathon, running the 127th Boston Marathon in 4:04 and 4:56, respectively.

To date, Ben and Katie have each raised $9,533 and $8,917 in support of The Lenny Zakim Fund. LZF is extremely grateful to Ben and Katie for the countless number of hours they devoted over the past several months not only training to run the marathon, but also raising money for The Fund and awareness about the important work we are doing in partnership with grassroots organizations to advance social, economic, and racial justice in communities throughout Massachusetts. LZF would also like to thank the many people for their incredibly generous donations.

Please consider helping Ben and Katie meet their respective $10,000 fundraising goals by making a gift to one or both of them TODAY by clicking on their names. Thank you.

For those of you who were unable to join us at our 27th Annual Awards Ceremony, we invite you to watch this video recording of the event.

The Lenny Zakim Fund would like to thank DJ Kerr and Jordan Carroll of Eternal Visuals and ASL and CDI interpreters from Partners Interpreting for making this video possible.

Established in 1995 by the late civil rights leader Lenny Zakim, The Lenny Zakim Fund continues to reflect his work and ideals by providing financial support, education, technical assistance and networking opportunities to small, community-based organizations and individuals who are passionate about social, racial, and economic justice and determined to become vehicles of critical change.

The Lenny Zakim Fund knows grassroots leadership is integral to ensuring that programs are successful, culturally relevant, effective, and meet the needs of affected people. Social justice at The Lenny Zakim Fund is about more than just grantmaking – it is about coming together in partnership to support leaders and the grassroots in their work against systemic oppression and their fight for equity.

LZF is a 501(c)(3) public, nonprofit organization that relies 100% on the generosity of our donors to support our annual operating budget, which includes our annual grants program. Over the past 28 years, The Fund has awarded over $12 million in grants to nearly 400 grassroots organizations throughout eastern Massachusetts.

To learn more, please visit www.thelennyzakimfund.org.