Massachusetts Military Support Foundation Inc

We run three empowerment centers, allowing us to serve 383,000 veterans, active-duty military personnel, and their families who live in Massachusetts. Through these centers, we are able to provide food, personal hygiene products, and many other life essentials for families. There are also full-service baby pantries inside. In addition, these hubs allow the servicemen and their families to connect to various services such as health care, mental health and substance abuse counseling, job training, and more. Our goal is to operate seven strategically located centers statewide. Additionally Our Mobile Empowerment Center will visit the remotely located City's and Towns to distribute meals, and personell hygiene products to veterans in need throughout Massachusetts who might be struggling to find food safely during the pandemic.

For Veterans: We will serve as a professional steppingstone, giving vets opportunities to build their resumes and their individual skill sets. We are a place to come, volunteer and work with other vets who share similar experiences. Opportunities for vets to become involved include employment, professional volunteerism, internships, and mentoring. Activities are not limited to farm, market, distribution of food (Food4Vets), clothing (Coats4Vets) supplies (Operation Backpack) but will be rich and diverse bringing vets into concept and design, administration and management, organizational development, fundraising, business and community networking, and educational projects. We have incubator space for entrepreneurs, for veteran owned and led small businesses. We will evolve to build and expand. Our plan is to offer housing and housing modification, food service, environmental and animal care industries. All will take place within a community that offers some of the familiar camaraderie and structure of the military experience while learning and implementing through methods that have proven to help individuals dealing with PTSD, physical disabilities, and reintegration.

FOOD4VETS
In response to the massive food insecurity problem posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, we focus on sourcing, packaging and distributing Vital Meal Kits (VMKs). These contain nonperishable and well-balanced meals. Each food package contains enough food and nutritional value for two people to have three meals a day for 14 days.
Our distribution process follows all COVID-19 health guidelines. Participants have limited interaction as they pick up their VMKs, which are easy to access. To date, we have provided more than 3.5 million meals to Veterans and Military families.


SAFEHOMES4VETS
The SAFEHOMES4VETS (SH4V) grant is available to help disabled Veterans by providing a barrier-free living environment, such as a wheelchair ramps, wider doorways, as well as Kitchen and bath upgrade allowing accessible homes, that affords Veterans a level of independent living they may not otherwise enjoy. Veterans and current service members with specific service- connected disabilities may be entitled to a grant for the purpose of modifying their living accommodations to meet their individual adaptive needs, up to the current maximum of $20,000 for 2020.


JOBS4VETS
The Homeless Reintegration Program (HVRP) is an employment-focused competitive grant program of the Department of Labor, Veterans’ Employment and Training Service (DOL-VETS). It is the only federal grant to focus exclusively on competitive employment for homeless Veterans. The Program has two core objectives: provide services to assist in reintegrating homeless Veterans into meaningful employment within the labor force; and 2) to stimulate the development of effective service delivery systems that will address the complex problems facing homeless Veterans. If you are or know of a homeless Veteran looking for full-time employment, please reach out to learn more about HVRP eligibility and the services we can provide. To register for the program or to learn more as an employer, see Jobs4Vets Form.


COATS4VETS
Through this program, we distribute coats to veterans in need to help make sure that they are safe from the unforgiving winter weather. Coats4Vets is made possible through the generous donations from Ocean State Job Lot Charitable Foundation. Coats4Vets Buckets were recently distributed to Massachusetts Law Enforcement who are encouraged to select the link below to provide information on their interactions with the homeless. The information provided will allow Massachusetts Military Support Foundation to connect with homeless veterans to offer veteran related services.

OPERATION BACKPACK
We believe that the youth is among the most vulnerable members of veteran and military families, as they are affected by almost every situation and decision. That is why we aim to help these children through Operation Backpack. To help with their education, we provide them with the basic tools they need to participate in school. This program culminates in late August before classes resume.

The Massachusetts Military Support Foundation (MMSF) was founded to provide Veterans with a dependable source of healthy meals. It also manages Empowerment Sites that provide assistance with, and connections to additional services that they may need in order to live safe, stable and productive lives.
MMSF is the only organization exclusively providing food for Veterans. In total, MMSF serves 383,000 Massachusetts Veterans and Military Families annually. Since early March of 2020, as the COVID 19 emergency emerged, MMSF has been focused on packaging and distributing boxes containing non-perishable, well balanced meals for Veterans in need.
Each food package contains enough food and nutritionist-developed recipes for two people for two weeks. To date MMSF has packaged and over 5.5 million meals in greater-Boston and across Massachusetts. MMSF has focused all of its resources toward this effort, but the demands are increasing by the day. Our ability to meet these demands provides a measuring stick against the orginazations goals.