Vision

ALL IMMIGRANT YOUTH HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO SUCCEED

Mission

to empower immigrant youth to achieve academic, career, and personal success through inspiring out-of-school experiences

What Guides Us

Who We Are

OUR TEAM

OUR Board of Directors

Enroot was established in 1938 as Cambridge Community Federation, a philanthropic federation with a mandate to coordinate the development of charitable funds, to assess needs in the community, and to distribute funds accordingly amongst federation members. In 1951, the organization rebranded as Cambridge Community Services (CCS), a community development agency which assessed community needs and designed programs in response. CCS served as a neutral convener, technical assistance provider, and catalyst for positive social change. Since the agency’s inception, community building had been at the heart of every undertaking.  Since pivoting to direct service, CCS has played a central role in providing and coordinating youth employment, education and career services across Cambridge.

During the past 78 years, Cambridge has changed dramatically, from a manufacturing-based economy to the diverse, capable, resource-rich city it is today. Throughout this change, we have remained true to our mission as a Cambridge-focused community-development organization. However, recognizing these shifts in community demographics, the Board of Directors engaged in a long-term strategic planning process and emerged with an inspiring new vision for the future. Recognizing 24 years of success for the City Links program, the organization’s mandate is expansion: sustainable growth of a program whose alumni graduate college at double the rate of their peers, with substantially increased self- confidence, advocacy, and leadership skills. While the population of low-income and new-immigrant families in Cambridge is not growing at the pace of previous decades due to rising property values and a declining stock of affordable housing, many neighboring communities have seen their immigrant populations grow substantially. 

After conducting a detailed landscape analysis exploring surrounding communities and schools, with the help of a pro-bono team of Deloitte consultants through Inspire, the Board of Directors approved the first program expansion site at Somerville High School, in collaboration with the Cambridge program. We successfully piloted the program at SHS in the Fall of 2016 and are thrilled to have been invited back to serve even more Somerville students in the following years.

Our identity has grown and changed along with our students and community for the past 78 years. Our fourth core value of “constant improvement” demands our continued improvement and evolution, and we are excited to re-brand as Enroot. We spent a year refining our mission and values and updated our name, to better reflect the future of our work. 

We continued to grow our Cambridge program to 80 students and expanded to serve the low-income immigrant population at Somerville High School in the Fall of 2016. With a diverse set of students from around the world, as well as a large population of undocumented and unaccompanied minors arriving each year, both communities represent exciting opportunities for Enroot to pursue its mission of serving low-income immigrant youth. We are thrilled to be partnering with both schools and continuing our expansion in the Fall of 2017.

WELCOME TO THE NEXT CHAPTER OF ENROOT →