HOLYOKE – The Care Center received a $1 million gift to support its work with young mothers and low-income women through a major investment in its Bard Microcollege Holyoke program.

Through a virtual press announcement, Care Center Executive Director Anne Teschner shared the news alongside Care Center co-founder Angela Wright and board Co-President Sylvia Galvan. In the announcement, Teschner shared the organization is launching a $4 million endowment campaign to keep the work they do alive.

“I’m very excited to announce that the Ceres Foundation, one of our longtime funders, has given the Care Center $1 million to launch an endowment for Bard Microcollege Holyoke,” Teschner said.

Bard Microcollege Holyoke is the nation’s first college for young mothers and low-income women. The organization gives opportunities to the women in these demographics through a free associate’s degree program. According to Teschner, the woman in this program have seen a 72 percent graduation rate with women going on to earn bachelor’s degrees from Smith and Mount Holyoke colleges.

“When I founded the Care Center more than 30 years ago, I wanted to create a place where young moms could feel supported as they continued on with their education,” Wright said. “Our program provides Day Care – really important – transportation and counseling. Imagine what we could do in years to come,” Teschner said.

According to Galvan, these funding efforts will be called the “Moving Women Forward” campaign and added that on top of early commitments already made, the new donation would put the organization more than halfway to their $4 million goal.

“Thanks to these unbelievable leaders and their generosity, our work will be sustained for generations to come,” Galvan said. “Big things are happening in Holyoke, together we can move women and their children forward.”

Teschner told Reminder Publishing after the announcement that the idea to start the endowment campaign came about “fairly organically.”

“We’re now in our seventh year [of the microcollege] and in doing it we’ve come to understand that there will always be a need to raise some money to support the program and make sure that it’s tuition free for everybody,” said Teschner.

Teschner explained that Bard Microcollege is able to access Pell Grants to over the costs of students but there are still students who aren’t eligible under Pell Grant requirements, so this campaign is to have funding available to help those in this situation.

Through reaching out to the Ceres Foundation they found support of the project and a dialogue began between the two parties. This was not the first collaboration between the two parties either as Teschner said the Ceres Foundation has been a consistent partner is helping them accomplish the goals of their work.

“They’ve really been supporting us with our access to college work for like 15 years now. They’re really solid partners and they’ve also been helpful in helping us think about the best ways to move forward and they’ve been really supportive of our innovative ideas,” Teschner said.

This money will help the Care Center get students into the microcollege to get their associate’s degrees. Teschner added that they still try to stay involved with the students they help after they receive their associate’s degree in either finding a career or taking the next step in education for a bachelor’s degree.
“We’re there to support them and their degree. The program itself is very intellectually academically rigorous, so they come out of it with an associate degree from Bard and have really honed skills,” Teschner said. “They’re good thinkers and writers and speakers.”

Teschner said she is incredibly excited and proud of students and staff for being a part of the development for this program that has become a success, as well as the opening of a woman’s college in Bard.

While there is nothing really like this program in the area, the Care Center looks to continue their hard work and helping young women and mothers what it takes to start their careers.

“I think that’s part of what really distinguishes the Care Center, and it starts from the very beginning,” said Teschner. “Kind of creating something out of thin air and really moving forward with a solid idea of a solid vision and making it real. That’s really what we do.”

Teschner thanked Galvan and Wright for their vision, leadership, patience and being partners through this work. She added thanks to the Sears Foundation for their support in launching the campaign and to all the early supporters who have already made donations.

According to Teschner, community members are welcomed to be a part of “this incredible vision and movement” by visiting carecenterholyoke.org and hitting the donate button.