"…to create a sustainable community-wide commitment in which everyone contributes to building a brighter future with youth"

Building Brighter Futures With Youth (BBFWY), has been studying best practice models and building key relationships with important community stakeholders to devise the most catalytic and systemic approach to addressing important youth issues.

A year-long needs assessment process inspired BBFWY to take on two key issues in Worcester:

1)  Create meaningful job opportunities for our City’s youth

2)  Enhance the City’s commitment to youth and opportunities for youth voice through the creation of a Youth Office. 

Please read the BBFWY official Charter and Description for more information.

Download our current BBFWY committee list.

New Youth Opportunities Office Established
Tim Garvin, United Way of Central Massachusetts President and CEO,
Commends City of Worcester on their decision.

On June 11, 2007 City Manager Michael O’Brien announced the creation of a Youth Opportunities Office, which will be funded with a generous donation of $308,699 from St. Vincent Hospital. In response to this announcement Timothy J. Garvin issued this statement:

“It is with great pleasure that we applaud and commend City Manager O’Brien in establishing a Worcester Youth Opportunities Office. The United Way’s Building Brighter Futures with Youth strategic initiative has given much effort in the past few years to create such an office.

“I must congratulate the co-chairs of Building Brighter Futures with Youth, Laurie Ross of Clark University and the Hope Coalition and John O’Brien of UMass Memorial, that their vision for all the youth of this city has been realized."

Building Brighter Futures with Youth (BBFWY), a strategic initiative formed in 2002 by UWCM, has been studying best practice models and building key relationships with important community stakeholders to devise the most catalytic and systemic approach to addressing important youth issues. A year-long needs assessment process inspired BBFWY to take on two key issues in Worcester 1)  Create meaningful job opportunities for our City’s youth and 2)  Enhance the City’s commitment to youth and opportunities for youth voice through the creation of a Youth Office. 

To learn more about Building Brighter Futures with Youth please visit the BBFWY page on our website here.

To read more about the creation of the Youth Office visit the Worcester Telegram and Gazette article about the event here.

Last Year 29 businesses, 38 community based organizations, 6 government agencies, and 8 colleges and universities helped provide 700 youth with summer employment. Learn more about our successes in the 2006 summer.

Youth Employment in the News

Worcester Business Journal "Jobs for youth fuel long-term pay offs for local employers"

Worcester Magazine- "I Was a Teenage Job Candidate"