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The Community Day Center of Waltham
PO Box 541066
Waltham, Mass
Phone: 617-960-7793
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... a place to be
... a place of safety.
... a place of respect
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Who We Are
The Community Day Center of Waltham is a unique place that is open to everyone in need in our Metro-west community. We specifically serve the homeless and low-income members of the greater-Waltham-Metro-West area, and provide a safe place for people to come each weekday afternoon.
A primary service of the CDC is to provide a welcoming and nurturing shelter during the weekday afternoon hours when there is no alternative place to go for many in our community. In this manner we serve as a community "drop in" center where anyone can come in to get warm, find fellowship, be nourished and find specific assistance.
Beyond shelter, the CDC is viewed as a "life-line" that provides many practical resources to help people in need find assistance in making the necessary next steps to improve their life situation. We have telephones with free-long distance, a high-speed internet café with 6 terminals and printers, anonymous answering machines, and use of an anonymous P.O. box (especially vital for the homeless). We also provide vital information on available social services in Waltham and beyond to our guests. Our staff and interns from a local counseling center offer crisis counseling and traditional counseling to those in need. Through helping guests write resumes, locate resources on the internet, find available jobs and housing, we offer our guests direct next steps out of homelessness or other challenging situations.
The Community Day Center ? strategically located directly between the Salvation Army (serves breakfast and lunch each day) and the Bristol Lodge Soup Kitchen (serves daily dinners) ? is a central and reliable resource in the community for those most in need.
The Community Day Center is open Monday ? Friday, 1:30-4:30pm in the community hall of 1st Presbyterian Church, 34 Alder Street , Waltham , MA 02454.
Please come and stop by - all are welcome!
We rely on YOUR support
The Community Day Center receives its funding primarily from individual donors and churches in the Metro-West area. Individual donors range from Boston to Lexington and beyond. Churches from Waltham , Weston, Wellesley , Needham , Newton , and Lexington are actively involved in supporting the CDC. The CDC also finds some support through available state & local grants and s pecific foundations. If you are interested in making a tax-deductible donation to us, please contact Rob Mark at walthamday@comcast.net, or 617-960-7793. And THANK YOU!
Questions or comments?
Get in touch with us at:
walthamday@comcast.net
How do I get there?
From Interstate 95 (Route 128); take route U.S.
20 toward Waltham into the Waltham Center Commons. At the
Sovereign Bank, take a right onto Moody Street. Follow
Moody St. all the way up the hill until you see the South
Middle School on the left. Alder St. is just beyond the
school on the left. We're in the downstairs fellowship
hall of the little white church on the next corner of Alder St.
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History of CDC
The Community Day Center opened in September 2003 in response to a specific need: the significant population of homeless adults in the City of Waltham had no place to spend their afternoons. This was true regardless of weather, illness, or other needs. The idea for an afternoon shelter was first raised by a city resident who had himself been homeless and who was aware of the lack of facilities. He took his concern to community and religious leaders, who worked together for over two years to prepare for the Centers opening. Funding during the Centers inaugural year came from churches and denominations, foundations, and over 300 individual donors from in and around Waltham.
Since 2003 the Community Day Center has become a vital and growing resource for Waltham. On a typical winter day sixty guests spend time at the Center. While most are
white males, roughly 25% are Hispanic, 12% are women, and 5% are African-American. Most are also homeless, although a significant minority are mentally disabled, living in the community in group homes or subsidized housing. Attendance moderates during the summer, but has never been lower than twenty-five daily guests.
Although initially conceived as a place of shelter, the Day Center addresses many other needs. The most significant of these is the need for communication tools. Guests have access to telephones (for making calls and receiving messages), a mailing address, computers (for internet searches, e-mail, and word processing of resumes), a fax machine, a printer and a photocopier. With these resources, which otherwise are unavailable to them, they search for jobs, arrange housing and shelter, access community resources, and maintain tenuous family ties. Staff and volunteers at the Center are always available to help with these tasks, and to offer moral and emotional support. Guests often describe the Center as the only place in their troubled lives where they are welcomed, rather than tolerated Eappreciated, rather than begrudged.
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