presentation school foundation

PSF Community Center

Serving the Allston Brighton neighborhood of Boston

To be a valued partner and catalyst for a vibrant Allston Brighton community

The Presentation School Foundation supports individuals and families by providing access to resources, services and social, educational, and cultural opportunities in an inclusive and welcoming space that is an anchor for the Allston Brighton community.

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging Statement

Presentation School Foundation will continue to strengthen its core commitment to being welcoming, accessible and inclusive to all in what we do and how we do it as we respond to the evolving needs of the Allston Brighton community.

An Engaged Community Partner

More Than a Landlord The PSF Community Center believes that bringing organizations together can strengthen their impact on the community. The building strives to create a welcoming physical and philosophical environment that supports the work of Allston Brighton nonprofits. The Community Center offers opportunities for nonprofits to network and collaborate to innovatively and strategically address community needs.

Enriching the Community The PSF Community Center is a community partner which engages with organizations inside and outside of the Community Center to enrich the Allston Brighton community. As an engaged member of the community, PSF Community Center is constantly assessing the needs of the neighborhood and collaborates with others to respond to these needs.

Addressing Health Disparities PSF Community Center has hosted flu and COVID 19 vaccine clinics as needed.

Build in g Community Each year, PSF Community Center hosts a variety of events that bring our diverse neighborhood together including holiday celebrations, cultural celebrations ,neighborhood barbeques, movie nights, and more.

The Center exists because of the extraordinary effort by the neighborhood, along with the support of numerous organizations, foundations, businesses, members of the community and local and state government and elected officials .

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The presentation school foundation community center.

The Presentation School Foundation Community Center received funds through the Harvard University Allston-Brighton Emergency Response Grant Program in efforts to support community.  

When the Our Lady of the Presentation School was closed over 15 years ago, the community rallied to maintain the building as a neighborhood institution. The result: the Presentation School Foundation (PSF) Community Center, a hub for organizations and individuals committed to the neighborhoods of Allston and Brighton.

The Foundation recently received funding through the Harvard University Allston-Brighton Emergency Response Grant Program, which will be used to help the six partner organizations that call the building home to continue providing essential services such as food pantry operations, social service outposts, and childcare services.

“The COVID-19 crisis is so unlike anything anyone has ever experienced, it could be easy to feel overwhelmed as [one] organization trying to respond to community need,” says Clodagh Drummey, the organization’s executive director. “I think being a part of a group of organizations working [collaboratively] to address the problem is tremendous – it gives you a feeling of possibility. It gives you hope.”

One of those partner organizations is the Allston Brighton Neighborhood Opportunity Center (AB NOC), which has been focused on distributing food to members of the community in need. AB NOC still runs its food pantry as a drop-in location where those in need can pick up food, but a solution was needed for those without the ability to go to a food distribution site. The emergency funding from Harvard has enabled PSF to even more thoroughly clean the Center prior to any food distribution, an important task even which has become even more essential – and more frequent - during the ongoing global health crisis.

Drummey also said the members of a group convened by the Allston Brighton Health Collaborative developed an idea to enlist volunteers who would bike supplies from food distribution sites to those who need healthy food.

“Having something like 30 organizations working together and being strategic on how resources are allocated, we can make a big difference,” Drummey says. “These folks pour themselves into their work, and they rely on volunteers from the community. They are [a group of] neighbors who care about the community and want to make it better.”

She notes that by engaging with this group of organizations all striving to better the neighborhoods in which they exist she can connect those that call the PSF Community Center home with essential resources.

PSF’s existing relationships and partnerships have been key to maintaining its commitment to those they serve. She notes specifically partnerships with like-minded community groups, City Councilor Liz Breadon, and Harvard University.

“Our needs have changed and there are new expenses that we did not have to anticipate four or five months ago to allow us to open the community center in a safe way,” Drummey says. “Having the support of institutions like Harvard has been incredibly helpful.”

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A People's Guide to Greater Boston

An online extension of the book by Joseph Nevins, Suren Moodliar and Eleni Macrakis

Our Lady of Presentation School/The Presentation School Foundation Community Center

640 washington street, brighton.

Graduation ceremonies for Our Lady of Presentation School normally took place inside the Catholic elementary school. On June 9, 2005, however, the one for the kindergarten was held across the street in Brighton’s Oak Square Common. The ceremony was one of both celebration and protest—protest against the Archdiocese of Boston’s abrupt closure of the school the previous day. The Archdiocese had made the move out of fear that parents would occupy the building in order to prevent the shutting down of the school, scheduled for two days later.

The early 2000s was a challenging time for the Catholic Church in Boston.  Growing out-migration of Catholics of European descent to Boston’s suburbs and broader changes in churchgoing among Catholics (decades-long processes) brought about a dramatic decline in church attendance within the city. These factors, combined with the revelations of sexual abuse in 2002, led to a sharp decrease in financial support for the Church from area Catholics. Meanwhile, the sexual abuse scandal itself exacted high financial costs: About two years after the revelations, the Archdiocese of Boston had paid $85 million in a settlement involving 500 victims.* In this context, the Archdiocese announced in mid-2004 that it would close 82 parishes (out of a total of 357) in the coming months. It also announced the closure of Our Lady of Presentation School.

Given the strong identification of Boston’s Catholics with their parishes and the associated institutions, parishioners often resisted the closures, and, in some instances, successfully. In the case of Our Lady of Presentation, parents, students and community members occupied and camped out in Oak Square in protest of the lockout, attracting national and international media attention and strong support across Boston in the process. Eventually, in 2006, the Archdiocese agreed to sell the property to the Presentation School Foundation, an organization of parents and community members.

Today, the former school is the home of the multi-service Presentation School Foundation Community Center , which opened in 2012. It houses a range of non-profit organizations that serve children, families, and recent immigrants.

Getting there :

Various MBTA bus lines pass through Oak Square.

To learn more :

“A Community Center Rises from A Closed Catholic School,” WBUR , May 18, 2012 .

Brian MacQuarrie, “Once Embattled Brighton School Reborn as Community Center,” The Boston Globe , May 11, 2012 .

Michael Paulson, “Catholic School Lockout Angers Parents, Officials,” The Boston Globe , June 10, 2005 .

John C. Seitz, No Closure: Catholic Practice and Boston’s Parish Shutdowns , Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011.

“History,” Presentation School Foundation Community Center website .

* See also the entry on the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in A People’s Guide to Greater Boston .

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Preserving a Community in Brighton

24 feb preserving a community in brighton.

HBI congratulates the volunteers of the Presentation School Foundation Inc . as they break ground this week on the rehabilitation of the 1929 Our Lady of the Presentation School in Brighton?s Oak Square. A group of Brighton residents, the Foundation has been working for several years to convert the former parochial school into a multi-tenant community center that will house year-round, full-day programs for children, families, recent immigrants and the diverse Allston-Brighton community.

The Our Lady of the Presentation School is a landmark that visually defines Oak Square in Brighton. It is significant for its association with Irish immigration and the growth of the Catholic Church in Boston. With its hipped roof of Spanish clay tiles, it is also a beautiful example of Renaissance Revival-style architecture.

It takes a pretty selfless, caring community to develop and execute on a vision like the Presentation School Community Center. Their work ? an incredible list of achievements-? is considerable. This group of volunteers

? purchased the former school from the Boston Catholic Archdiocese; ? recruited St. Elizabeth?s Medical Center, Little Sprouts kindergarten (along with Wheelock College and WGBH) and Creative Workplace Learning to the site. They also carved out space for a Community Center and meeting space for local civic groups; ? raised $3.8 million for construction through grant proposals and fundraisers; ? put together a scope of work, hired a contractor, went to the bank, the City and the State, and arranged financing for the project. ? ?A good idea is certainly an excellent magnet. Mayor Menino and the BRA secured funding contributions from larger development nearby, Mass Development structured tax exempt bond financing for the project, and all the elected officials from Brighton ? Senator Tolman, Representatives Honan and Moran, and City Councilor Mark Ciomo — were strong advocates for this very grassroots campaign. Secretary of State William Galvin even put forward a personal line of credit to the group to help secure the building in the first place.

About 9 months ago, HBI got a phone call from a board member at Wainwright Bank asking if we?d look into this project. The Bank had just approved a loan but the proposed project could not afford to replace the roof?s Spanish tiles, and the replacement windows could not replicate the original 6-over-6 style windows. We wondered if HBI could make a low interest loan to the project or help raise the money. In the course of conversations with Foundation board members Jim Prince and Kevin Caragee, we discovered that the Foundation hadn?t pursued Massachusetts Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credits, something that could cover 20% of qualified costs related to building rehabilitation.

HBI convened meetings of the School representatives, their contractor, and Albert Rex of MacRostie Historic Advisors in Boston. Albert?s team provided pro bono support for the tax credit application and will syndicate the tax credits. HBI also coordinated the mandatory support from state and local preservation organizations. Thanks to Secretary of State William Galvin and the Massachusetts Historical Commission , the Presentation School Community Center received a full allocation of State Historic Tax Credits ? $1 million — enough to close the critical gap in the project and incentive enough to keep the character-defining features of the historic school.

The Presentation School Foundation?s accomplishments are inspiration to us. A lot of things are possible when everyone pitches in on a great idea.

Read more about the Presentation School Foundation?s grassroots efforts in this 2010 Boston Globe Op-Ed piece and in this 2007 article from the  Allston-Brighton Tab .

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The Presentation School Foundation Community Center

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PSF is a community-based organization foremd to support educational, health and community services for children and families. The center provides a range of services to residents in the Allston-Brighton neighborhood of Boston, including affordable day care and preschool, transportation for eldelry and visually impaired, WIC program, and civic meeting space.

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• Children & Youth
• Community Development
• 640 Washington Street, Boston, MA 02135, United States

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