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FRAMINGHAM – An organization called “Framingham Together” launched its website this month.
Framingham Together consists of more than 3 dozen “organizations that stand in solidarity against racism and discrimination of any kind and look to create and foster an inclusive community for all.”
The mission is to be the “pre-eminent MetroWest organization that comes together to promote and support diversity, equity & inclusion across the public and private sectors.”
A press conference with some of the community partners, unveiling the new website was held last Monday, December 5.
The website went public mid-last week, in English only. There are plans to include Spanish and Portuguese in 2023.
Two young men – Angel Ortega and Brendon Mourao – were interns for Greater Framingham Community Church through MassHire and oversaw the website project.
“I was employed by Rev. (J. Anthony) Lloyd this summer through Mass Hire. And I’ve worked alongside Brendan to create this website for www.FraminghamTogether.org,” said Ortega.
“When Reverend brought this to us, he wanted a vision for this site, and he wanted us to help it, bring it to form for him,” said Ortega, at the press conference. “We are satisfied with the work we’ve come up with.”
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Several of the community organizations (partners) involved with Framingham Together spoke at the press conference.
“I sit on the board of the United Way of Tri-County and have been involved with them for over 20 years supporting their food security programs and all of the work that they do, important work that they do to support residents in the greater Framingham community,” said Scott Richardson. “As an architect, I kind of work in the sustainability realm and as we face more and more issues related to climate change, the intersectionality of climate change and social justice becomes ever more apparent and critical. So the work that Framingham Together is really focusing on diversity, equity, and inclusion ties in with a lot of the work that I do as professional, but also the work that we do at the United Way. And we’re all just looking for a more fair and just society and the team and the people that have been working on this are inspirational to us all.”
“So “I’ve actually been involved with Framingham together for probably about three, four years now. Even in my last role at Wegman’s where I did marketing and brand for them inclusion has always, and diversity equity have always been very near and dear to my heart,” said Towma Rastad, Director of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion with the Metro West Chamber of Commerce. “I come from a mixed family myself and also from the South where systemic oppression is still quite prevalent in your face every day. And I also have a son that was born with a life threatening immune disease. So inclusion becomes very important. And I like Scott would like to thank all of our community partners out here that have come forward. We have over 40 community partners right now that stand true. And what I love about Framingham Together is a lot of people talk the talk, but then when you’re made to put your boots on the ground and really put that work into motion, not always the same.”
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“Here at Framingham Together, Reverend Lloyd has given us all in the community an opportunity to not only say what we’d like to see change, but really give us a platform to stand on and help make that change. And community leaders often kind of can make as assumptions and simply saying, oh, well let’s just have a few people of color, or maybe have a few people that are non-binary to represent different cultures and experiences. But that’s not really enough to make your community just diverse. It’s simply checking a box. The thing that I like about Framingham Together is that we’re not just checking a box. We are out there creating a group of folks, creating a website so that businesses and organizations and other people will have resources to be able to utilize if they too would like to make a difference and move the needle in the appropriate direction,” said Rastad.
“I think Framingham has been able to — I’ll use air quotes — celebrate its diversity for a long time,” said Framingham Public Schools Assistant Superintendent for Equity, Diversity, and Community Engagement Tiffany Lillie. “I think that there is a severe urgency on behalf of our community, especially our students who obviously I’m here representing with the school department, but our whole community as a whole, family stakeholders, business owners around the urgency of equity.”
“There’s the diversity, there’s the inclusion piece, and there’s really the equity. What are we doing as a community to come together to try to support everyone and especially after the, I mean, things aren’t working great before the pandemic. I know we’ve all heard this. If anything, the pandemic has further exacerbated some issues that have always existed,” said Lillie. “To see the pervasiveness of the issues is daunting. And I don’t think any one institution, one person, one partner, should dare to try to take it on. And so I think Framingham Together offers that collective and crossover. Cause many of us know each other from different groups, from different meetings and coming truly together to kind of talk about it and seeing the partnership that happens offline from the meetings just shows the deep, deep value of having the centralized place, cross sector, cross agency. And I think really being able to dive into the equity challenges that are social justice, that are environmental justice, that are racism, all of these isms that come together to harm our community, I think can only be truly tackled in any way as a collective. I think it’s the most indigenous thing that we can do really is being a part of a collective, having grassroots efforts where we’re having conversations, we’re really trying to move things forward and include key stakeholders as part of that so that we’re not doing what we think we should do, but that we’re really trying to hear directly from folks as to how to respond collectively.
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“Framingham’s diversity is one of its true strengths,” said Sam Swisher, in a video on the Framingham Together website.
“We are learning to be inclusive,” said Rev. Debbie Clark, of Edwards Church, in a video on the website.
For those interesting in being a part of Framingham Together or working with the organization. Rev. Lloyd and Rastad with the Chamber are the best contacts.
“Their names and emails are on the website. We also have a donation page if you feel so inclined as to help out the community and contribute monetarily to the endeavors. And then we also have a forum section that you can create an account for and join. So these forums, they will, anybody can make a post, anyone can make a new topic. And it provides a simple and easy way for you to get involved with certain the community. Like say if you are joining a fundraiser, you would subscribe to the fund, the forum for the fundraiser and everyone involved would be communicating in that channel. And it just provides a centralized place for everyone to communicate and organize. But yeah, the website is here as a community resource for anyone in the community to use, again, not just in Framingham but throughout the larger metro West area, even though the name is Framingham Together. We do expand in all directions very far and wide in the area and around Framingham,” explained Mourao, at the Zoom press conference.
So now that Framingham Together has launched a website, SOURCE asked what is the next step?
“Our next step for in terms of the website, would be to begin advertising it as a community resource that people can get involved with. Aiming for people to start making accounts, start making forum posts, start communicating with each other and engaging with the community,” said Mourao, who added they are still adding partner organizations to the website and want to add language translations.
Mourao said he Framingham Together also was to “populate the website with events. The upcoming events I think would also help if people can see which organizations are hosting, which events upcoming this month, the next month, the next year. I think that also will help people engage a lot more people.”
“When it comes to the overall Framingham Together, where our plans are, we’ll be doing strategic planning and sort of working out how best we expand the partnerships and memberships in the organization, but also how we advance the various partners and what they’re doing in the area of diversity, inclusion, and equity,” said Rev. Lloyd. “We’ll be bringing in a consultant and help us to look at what are the next steps, and how we support the various partners in their own particular work and their institutions.” So that’ll be great.”
“This goes without saying, but we wouldn’t be here without Rev. Lloyd,” said Richardson. “Kudos to him for this idea, having it in its infancy, and then moving it along and including a lot of the great organizations that support this effort. But again, it is interesting. I look back through my notes and I did not see the Brazilian American entity (BRACE) being part of this. So we still have work to do, make sure we are inviting everybody and getting everybody at the table so that we can accomplish this.”
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MetroWest Medical Center