June 4, 2025

A letter to the Editor of the Watertown News 

Dear Editor –

The Watertown Community Foundation sends a big THANK YOU to the Watertown Community!

You are amazing!  Thank you to the more than 350 community and corporate volunteers who volunteered during the 11th annual Watertown Helps Out (WHO), a month of community service organized by the Watertown Community Foundation. 

We got a lot of stuff done this month! Together, we removed invasive plants on the Bike Greenway, picked up trash on the river and the Sculpture Walk, filled potholes and did outdoor spring clean-up at the Watertown Housing Authority. We organized the set shop for the Mosesian Center for the Arts, staffed plant sales, concerts and events at the Perkins School, reached out to local businesses to promote queer safe spaces and open hours during Mt. Auburn road construction.  We painted a key interior space for the Boys and Girls Club, a new mural for the Watertown Community Gardens, and hundreds of flowers for the Pride Community Art Project.  And this is only a fraction of all that we accomplished in May.  You can see photos of all WHO activities here.

Your time, help and heart also brought essential food donations to both of Watertown’s food pantries.  At a time when demand is high and pantry shelves need restocking, thanks to the generosity of the people who live and work in Watertown, we brought cart loads of food to each pantry.  Thank you to the City of Watertown, ButcherBox, and to everyone who contributed to this effort.

We are grateful to all our sponsors, including Arsenal Yards Life Sciences, C4 Therapeutics, Enanta Pharmaceuticals, Kymera Therapeutics and Watertown Savings Bank, for their participation as volunteers and their support. 

Our motto for WHO is: Together We Can Do So Much.  On behalf of the Watertown Community Foundation, thank you for bringing our motto to life for another season of WHO.

In gratitude,

Lauren Coughlin Unsworth, Co-President

Mary Ann Mulligan, Co-President

Tia Tilson, Executive Director