Summer CUBS Day at the Zoo
WAMS Officers 2025
- Chair: Carolyn Droser
- Clerk: Rev. Linda Michel
- Treasurer: David Manchester
2025 was a productive year for the Worcester Area Mission Society, United Church of Christ, known to many as “WAMS.” Our programs were strong, and planning for a change in our headquarters at 6 Institute Road in Worcester became the opportunity for the Board of Directors and staff to take another look at what we do now and to consider what more we might do for the good of our communities.
Migrant Support Mission Work
In 1829, our organization was created to help workers, most of whom were Irish immigrants, who were building the Blackstone Canal. Since 2023, WAMS has returned to our roots by collaborating with other organizations on support for recent migrants who began pouring into central Massachusetts. In that year, waves of Haitian families arrived, some with not much more than the clothes they wore. Other migrants came from the middle east and Latin America. The first big needs were clothing and baby products. Karen Ludington, the WAMS Executive Director, learned of these needs through her participation in Worcester Together.
WAMS turned to our UCC churches for help, and they immediately came through and are still coming through today. In 2025, our collaboration with the Office of New Americans, a program of Friendly House, became even stronger.
During the year, the first WAMS Migrant Support Project Coordinator, Rev. Fran Graveson, left when she was called to ministry by a UCC congregation. She had begun organizing groups of volunteers to collect, organize, and help distribute, products needed by migrant families and had created a newsletter. We were very fortunate in two ways in 2025: first, to receive another grant from the Massachusetts Woman’s Home Missionary Union (MWHMU) to support our migrant work and the Coordinator position; and second, to find Erin O’Connor, a strong lay leader at the First Church in Sterling, to take over as Coordinator. Erin maintained the monthly newsletter to volunteers and supporters and increased the number of volunteers as the distribution work grew. And it did grow. The Public Room at WAMS was packed with families for each event. While in 2024, 100-200 migrant families came, in 2025, totals ranged from 200 to 400. Families were so much in need, that they would wait for hours in a packed room to get diapers and clothing.
Erin and volunteers came to WAMS before each distribution day to organize everything that had been delivered – clothes, diapers, baby wipes, and personal care products. Sometimes interns from the Office of New Americans came to help. Together, they did whatever needed to be done, including, many times, emptying box trucks full of products ordered by Friendly House.
The volunteers who came on the distribution days in 2025 worked equally hard, registering families, keeping order, opening box after box of diapers and then breaking down the boxes, making sure families got the right sizes for their children, and cleaning up at the end of each event.
Because of the aggressive immigration enforcement actions of the federal administration, in 2025, WAMS had to consider how to serve the migrant families safely. We took four steps.
- Karen participated in training about how to respond if ICE or other federal officers came to the door.
- She created an instruction memo for staff and volunteers about what to do if federal officers showed up.
- We put a “Private Property/No Trespassing sign on the outside door near our office, to support our ability to refuse entry.
- We required all families to wait inside. In past years, when the weather was good, families would line up outside our building, but that no longer felt safe.
So far, we have not had any federal visitors, but it was best to be prepared.
WAMS could not do this work without the financial support of churches and the generosity of individuals who give their time, skills, and cash. Excluding the MWHMU grant, in 2025, WAMS received more than $8,000 toward our Migrant Support mission, plus untold amounts of clothing and baby products. We are very grateful.
The Biggest Book Drive
Again in 2024-2025, WAMS led the Annual Book Drive that had started several years earlier as a small part of the annual Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Breakfast. Karen and Rev. Linda Michel, a WAMS Director, serve on the Breakfast Committee. The Book Drive has become a six-month project that starts in the fall and ends when the books are delivered in the spring. All books are delivered to second and third grade students in public schools.
Some people buy books to contribute. In January 2025, at the MLK Breakfast, more than 100 books were donated. Most people choose to make cash donations to WAMS, and every penny is spent on books. We buy some from Tidepool Book Shop in Worcester, where all books for the drive are discounted, and we also order age-appropriate books in bulk from Scholastic, to get the best bargains.
For the first time, WAMS was able to expand the drive to provide new books to all the second and third graders in a total of seven schools, one in Fitchburg, one in Southbridge, and five in Worcester. We had never brought books to that many schools before. As in the previous year, we chose schools in low-income neighborhoods. Vanessa Ramos, Director of Programs, delivered most of the books. Thanks to supporters’ generosity, we raised $7,000 and were able to deliver more than 1,040 new books to the children.
In the fall of 2025, we started the current, 2025-2026 Book Drive, which will be our biggest ever.
Education Programs
SUMMER Cubs
Dr. Holly Dolan, Director of Summer CUBS, commented at the end of the 2025 program that it was the most successful ever, and staff agreed. Forty elementary school students, from Woodland Academy, a Worcester public school, participated. They ranged in age from five to 12 and were divided into age-appropriate groups. In 2025, attendance was especially even and strong. Consistent attendance was an indication of the students’ commitment to, and enjoyment of, the program.
Even more important, however, were the testing results. Summer learning loss is a serious problem in most schools. A major goal of Summer CUBS is to stem that loss. Woodland Academy administers tests to students before and after the summer. In 2025, 68% of assessed CUBS students increased or maintained their percentile ranking in phonics and reading accuracy. Seventy percent increased or maintained their percentile ranking in reading comprehension. Results were also positive in math, where 57% increased or maintained their percentile ranking in mathematical skills.
We were very grateful to United Way of Central Massachusetts for a $5,000 ASOST grant for CUBS, and to Webster Five Foundation for a grant of $3,000. WAMS pays most CUBS costs from our own funds, but we could not run the program without grant support.
Thanks to Clark University and Dr. Dolan, CUBS students in 2025 were able to go on three fun and educational field trips, first to the New England Botanical Garden, second to the Ecotarium, and third to the Roger Williams Park Zoo in Providence, Rhode Island. Going out of state was especially exciting for the children. These educational enrichment opportunities were very important to the success of the program.
Play Group Plus
Our Play Group Plus collaborations with Worcester Family Partnership and Fitchburg’s MOC agency continued to run well. In Worcester, over the course of the year, 79 different children participated. In Fitchburg, there were 72 unduplicated families, some of whom brought more than one child. As always, some families came week after week, and some participated for shorter periods. Each week, the parents joined their children in play, crafts, and reading circles and were also able to interact and talk with each other. Child and adult friendships were made.
There was a significant change in Fitchburg in 2025, when our collaborating agency, MOC, needed the space we were using at one of their sites to adapt for another purpose. The Play Group Plus program had to move to a room at the YMCA of Fitchburg. The change caused a brief downturn in attendance, because of transportation and parking, but families bounced back, and weekly attendance returned to an ideal size, generally 12-17 children, plus their parents, grandparents, and caregivers.
At both locations, WAMS continued to provide a new book and a light lunch each week for every child, plus a grocery gift card for the family. We were grateful for grants in support of this program from Greater Worcester Community Foundation and the United Way of Central Massachusetts.
Fiscal Sponsorship
WAMS continued to serve as fiscal sponsor for Hollywoo Studios, a start-up program for teens.
Anchor Mission
WAMS continued to be part of the UMass/Memorial Healthcare Anchor Mission program, with Karen serving on the committee that approves projects for loans. At the end of 2024, WAMS had identified a program that needed and deserved support, and the WAMS Board voted to loan $50,000 to the Regional Environmental Council (REC), a highly respected food equity not-for-profit, to help them buy property in the Main South neighborhood on which to grow food and expand their headquarters. The loan was finalized in early 2025.
Facilities
- Sharing 6 Institute Road - WAMS continued to provide space to other not-for-profits, large and small, for meetings, training, concerts, and fundraisers. Joan Gonyea, the WAMS Office Manager, is responsible for managing scheduling, charges, and guests’ compliance with WAMS requirements. An especially fun event in early December was the Boys & Girls Club third annual Festival of Trees in our Sarah Wyman Whitman Gallery. As in previous years, WAMS staff had a good time donating and trimming a tree. Our theme in 2025 was Mario and friends. The low “rental” fees we charge make it possible for other organizations whose missions are consistent with our beliefs to afford to have events at 6 Institute that would cost them more, or perhaps be impossible to hold, elsewhere.
- In mid-2025, we received notice from our long-term tenant, Central Massachusetts Housing Alliance (CMHA), that they had outgrown their leased space in our building and would be moving elsewhere by June 30, 2026, when their lease expired. Their plan was a significant blow to WAMS, because we value what CMHA does and have been proud to support their mission by providing office space. We have also used the income from their lease to fund our programs and the upkeep of the building.
This news created a challenge and an opportunity for the WAMS Board and management. There is a complex relationship between the WAMS mission work and our building. The Board immediately perceived that this was the moment to review our mission work, gather information, and explore how we might change or grow what WAMS does.
WAMS contracted for two services: a Property Condition Assessment and a formal, professional Appraisal, with the latter covering both rental and sale values. The Property Condition Report stated that the building is sound, but acknowledged the need to redo the wiring in the Gallery, which we had already been planning. WAMS has been using the Appraisal results in connection with looking for one or more new tenants.
The Board followed review of the two reports by deciding to seek new tenants for the building.
Directors and staff also engaged in creative consideration of the future direction of WAMS. Discussions focused on two areas: strengthening ties with our UCC churches, a direction which the Board immediately endorsed, and exploring whether WAMS could and/or should respond to the growing program of hunger in our communities. The latter is ongoing.
Gathering Of Clergy
The Board’s decision that WAMS should take prompt action to reach out to our churches resulted in a decision to begin having Gatherings of clergy. There were multiple goals: to provide more knowledge of WAMS to clergy who might not know what we do; to discuss and share about congregations’ community mission work; and to explore how the churches might work together and with WAMS to grow and strengthen mission work.
WAMS Director Rev. Ethan Drutchas volunteered to work with Karen and Joan to organize the Gatherings. We did a mailing to all central Massachusetts UCC clergy whose contact information we could acquire to invite them to a luncheon at WAMS on December 6, 2025. Approximately a dozen clergy accepted the invitation, and some others who could not attend requested to be invited on another occasion. A Unitarian Universalist minister who was collaborating with a UCC church asked if he could participate, and he was welcomed.
Ethan facilitated the meeting. Karen gave an overview of WAMS, and Vanessa and Erin then spoke about their respective program areas. A substantive discussion followed that included sharing about mission work, especially in the area of food justice, and at the end of the Gathering, there was consensus that a second Gathering of clergy should be held in early 2026.
Financial Position
Based on preliminary financial reports, not yet reviewed by our accounts, WAMS finished 2025 ahead of budget.
Everyone, Board, staff, and volunteers of WAMS, worked hard in 2025 to carry out our mission to work with individuals and community partners to inspire economic and educational equity through social change.
WAMS could not have positive impact on our communities and neighbors without the strong commitment and contributions of the Central Massachusetts Association, our UCC congregations, generous individuals, and grant-making organizations. We are grateful to everyone who believes in our mission work.
Respectfully submitted,
Karen
Karen E. Ludington, Executive Director