Take Action


Members and friends of the Somerville community are encouraged to get involved with our initiatives on a one-time or regular basis. Check in here for periodic updates on how to get involved with SCC and Somerville.

SCC’s Winter Membership Gathering

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

SCC has set its Winter Member Meeting for Wednesday February 24th, with the location to be determined. There will be dinner at 5:30, followed by the Member Meeting itself at 6:30. The main focus of the meeting will be workshops providing opportunities for Members and others interested to learn about SCC's work in affordable housing, the impact of the Green Line extension, immigrant rights, East Somerville neighborhood issues, and leadership and financial education, and how Members can get involved in this work. We will also elect our Board of Directors and Officers for 2010, and give our annual Hazel Hughes and Norris Weston awards.

New Leadership Development Institute Training Series

February 27, March 13, March 27, April 10

SCC will offer our next series of Leadership Development Institute trainings from February through April of 2010. There is a planning discussion with former LDI participants that is scheduled for Wednesday, January 27th, 6pm at the SCC office. This year, we will be hosting two training series, as well as supplementary workshops:

Training Series One, Basics in Leadership Development: This will cover a range of topics, including leadership, relationship building, active listening, power in the context of social justice, analysis of power in Somerville, and other topics. This series will take place over 4 Saturday sessions between 8:30am and 1pm at the VNA on Lowell Street:February 27th; March 13th; March 27th; and April 10th. For more information and application materials, please contact: Cecily Harwitt 617-776-5931 x226.

Training Series Two, Advanced Leadership: This training series will be open to graduates of LDI and experienced SCC members. Stay tuned for future details of training topics and dates.



Community Corridor Planning Impacts State and City Planning

As faithful readers and Somerville activists know, hundreds of Somerville residents have come together to support sustainable, affordable, accessible & diverse development along the Green Line extension in Somerville. Now, it is time to take some action to support the implementation of these principles!

Thanks to the hard work of our CCP Advisory Team and other CCP participants, the CCP Core Principles entered the public arena in a variety of ways.  Over 300 people signed a petition to MEPA (Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act), the agency responsible for reviewing the MA Dept. of Transportation's Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR).  Once the DEIR gets approved and turned into the final EIR, the next phase of designing and constructing the Green Line can move forward.  This was an opportunity for community members to make sure approval happens ONLY if community concerns are addressed.  CCP made the case to MEPA to make sure many of the CCP Core Principles relevant to this DEIR be incorporated into final plans.  MEPA asserted they received more comments for this DEIR than any DEIR in the past.  In addition to petition signatures, dozens of community members, some of whom were participants of CCP, sent in individual letters spelling out community concerns and recommendations. 

We are also pleased to note that about 40 CCP participants attended the City's SomerVision meetings, and were able to connect the themes from the Core Principles with the City's vision as it moves forward with its Comprehensive Planning process. 

Finally, thanks to the networking folks have been doing in their own circles, as well as ongoing organizing and outreach, we have now increased the number of people who we've been in contact with and involved with to 688 people.  Next on the agenda?  Forming working groups to create recommendations for how to turn our Core Principles into concrete policies and plans.

You can continue to be involved in the following ways:

  • Attend Public Meetings, hosted by City and State government, to voice support of the Core Principles.  We will keep people updated as meeting dates are posted.
  • Join a working group focused on one of the 11 principles to come up with specific recommendations
  • Help us take photos!  We will be collecting photos of all of the places people noted as important, and these will ultimately be posted to our on-line mapping tool!
  • Volunteer indoors and outdoors with the project:  doorknocking, data collection, data input, outreach, etc.
  • Stay tuned for future community workshops and events hosted by CCP!
  • Contact Mary Regan for more info: Mary Regan or 617 776-5931 x230