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Upcoming Events
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Sunday, January 6th
RSVP online
Make Noise to Save a Life
more info to come...
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September 29th was
A Great Day to Be Alive!
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Thanks to our
5K Major Sponsors |
Samaritans
41 West St., 4th Floor
Boston, Massachusetts 02111 235 Walnut St. Framingham, MA 01702 |
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 Samaritans' recently launched awareness campaign aimed at making Boston happier continues to move forward with the launch of the full happierboston.org website! I hope you go to explore the site and enjoy browsing the video and pictures of our first social experiments aimed at highlighting that making a human connection makes our greater Boston community a happier place. Over the next weeks and months more experiments and more web content will be coming - and you can be a part of it. Is there a place in or around Boston that makes you happy?  Upload a picture with why it makes you happy at "Happy Spots." Do you want to participate in one of our social experiments, like "Orange You Happy?" Contact us at info@happierboston.org. At Samaritans, we believe that by making sure that peoples' voices are heard, we help them feel better about themselves and their lives. In our experience, when people are heard, they go from feeling overwhelmed to empowered, from discouraged to encouraged, from feeling all alone to being part of a bigger community. We accomplish this through services that emphasize confidential, nonjudgmental, and compassionate listening.
We look forward to sharing with you the happiness that will be delivered by Samaritans in the weeks, months and years to come!
Thank you!
Roberta Hurtig
Executive Director |
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These things make us happy...
 Partnerships with local colleges
Congratulations to our newest group of volunteers graduating from their helpline training! Thirty-one Boston College students will be volunteering with us for the next year through the college's PULSE and 4Boston groups.
 Samariteens & parents
We'd love to thank more than 40 parents and guardians of our Boston & Framingham Samariteens for coming out to two Parent Night events in spite of cold and drizzly weather in October. These events were a chance for parents to learn more about the important work their children do on our helpline and learn more about Samaritans. Also in October, a pioneering group of teens met for the first Samariteen Council, a new group designed to provide a way for our teens to give input and share thoughts on our youth related programming.
 Working to keep our communities safe
We are pleased to be partnering with MassDOT to support their employees and the public through services that reduce the incidence of suicide and to support those impacted by this tragedy. For more information click on this BostInno article and please note our helpline volunteers answer around 2,500 calls per week.
 Supporting the work of other great organizations
The Home Base Program at Massachusetts General Hospital provides clinical care and support services to Iraq and Afghanistan service members, veterans and their families; offers clinical and community education about the invisible wounds of war; and conducts research to improve treatment and understanding of Post Traumatic Stress and Traumatic Brain Injury. On Sunday and Monday, the Home Base Program will be hosting a number of opportunities to get involved in celebration of Veteran's Day. We hope to be collaborating more with Home Base in the future, and encourage you to find out more about this innovative program. |
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Honoring 25 years of service: Brian Potts
 Volunteer service is at the heart of what makes the work of Samaritans possible - our phone line and grief support services volunteers make our programs possible, and our board members ensure the continuity and stability of our organization. Our board members are a talented and dedicated group of people, and last month, we had the opportunity to celebrate an amazing milestone for one of them. Board member Brian Potts celebrates 25 years of service on the Samaritans board of directors this year. On Thursday, October 25th, a group of long-time and new supporters gathered for an evening to reflect upon the impact that Brian has had on the continuity of Samaritans, and his contributions to the sustainability of the organization. In his honor, we launched the Samaritans Sustainability Fund, raising funds to build on Brian's legacy of ensuring that Samaritans' services will be there whenever anyone needs them, now and in the future. If you are interested in helping to secure Samaritans future with a gift to the Sustainability Fund, please contact Beth Schultz or make a gift online here.
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Giving thanks November is a time to reflect back on the year, and on our gratitude for family, friends and community. On Monday, we celebrate Veteran's Day and the sacrifices of those who serve our country. As we give thanks for all that we have and all that we owe to others, it is also a time that we can remember those people who are a part of our community who are struggling and alone. At Samaritans, we get messages like this every day:
"I thank God for Samaritans. You're all I've got." - A Samaritans callerAt Samaritans, we are so thankful for the many people in our community who volunteer and support our work to be there for callers like this one, every day. As we reflect back with gratitude on the past year, and head into a holiday season in which our call volume increases, we know that the strength of our community will help us meet the challenge of being there for every caller. A gift to our annual fund from you today will help us to answer our phones more than 400 times each day in the coming year, and give hope to those on the other end of the line. 
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