Boston Neighborhood Network News

0:00Good evening, Boston. Welcome back to BNN News. I'm Natalie Candler. Thanks for tuning in. Last Friday marked another opportunity for advocates, community leaders, and organizations from across the region to come together in support of women's rights and gender equity. At Simmons University, this year's International Women's Day Breakfast focused on building connections, sharing strategies, and encouraging the next generation of leaders to continue the work towards equality. BNN reporter Eja Esacara has the story. Last Friday, community organizations and feminist groups across New England came together for the 28 annual International Women's Day Breakfast at Simmons College. The breakfast brought community leaders in more than 20 nonprofits together to increase the inter-organizational communication and power and to take collective action against gender inequality.

1:02The International Women's Day Breakfast is a great opportunity for us to come together every year to not only celebrate each other, but support each other through the hard times. We understand that this year, there's been a lot of changes, a lot of confusion, frustration, but there's still hope. So we're excited to come together to talk about how we're reigniting our movements for gender equity, so that way we can stand together and make sure that we're supporting causes for the future. As this year's theme was reigniting our movements for gender equity, panelists talked about the significance of staying hopeful while standing in solidarity with each other. Today brings together hundreds of feminists working all around the Greater Boston area for gender equality every single day and I know so many of us are feeling despair and discouragement looking at the state of gender equity in our country right now and yet we need to know that we can't give up hope and in fact we are moving the needle so much right here in

2:03Boston and in Massachusetts. I think events like this are so important because to be a young feminist in the Boston area and to watch all of these women come together and connect and inspire each other and honor each other, I think that it is just one of the most beautiful things that could ever happen in this world. The annual celebration aims for local women to connect, unite, collaborate, incorporate with each other while inspiring the next generation of feminist leaders. Every year in March these women come together to honor each other and their achievements. We know that we have very much come a long way but we realize that we have a very long way to go and so programs like these are very, very important that we keep the consciousness alive, that we have to continue to work every day for equality in regards to pay, in regards to acknowledgement for work, for rights, for healthcare, you name it, we got to do it.

3:05At this year's breakfast the Marie Turleaf Founding Mother Legacy Award was presented to Karen Holmes Ward, WCVB legend whose message of following your dreams resonated deeply with attendees. My advice to all women is believe in yourself, there are many people out in the world who don't want us to advance, don't want us to achieve, don't listen to the word no. If you have a dream, if you have a focus for what it is that you want to do, stay focused and be true to yourself but I think my best advice is don't listen to the word no and make sure you believe in yourself and have a dream. A group of tenants is celebrating a hard fought victory after years of organizing to keep their homes affordable. What started as a fight against steep rent increases turned into a long campaign for

4:08housing stability, with support from local advocates and non-profit housing organizations. Last week residents gathered to mark the moment they say proves community action can make a lasting difference. G&N Zarina Labbi tells us how they celebrated. Six years ago, the 840-846 Mass Aff tenant association learned that their building had been bought by a large property developer that wanted to raise rents by 50-80%. Most tenants have lived in the building for years and many were immigrant families and older adults with no other means of acquiring housing. This is a story about three older women and eight immigrant families who banded together in a tenant organization in a property that was acquired by a property developer who then tried to push us out by raising the rents to a degree that nobody could afford. Some people bailed out because they were afraid but the rest of us stuck steady and we managed

5:12to get our property acquired by a non-profit that develops affordable housing and now we have permanent affordable housing for everybody. For six years, the tenants who stayed have been fighting with the help of non-profits, city life, Vida Urbana and the housing corporation of Arlington against the unreasonable and overpriced rent. It's really tough when tenants face rent increases, it can be devastating and cause massive displacement. It's also really difficult to acquire these properties. We don't quite yet have the structure in our state to enable non-profits to capture these existing buildings that we've already built. They're already out there providing housing and we need to capture way more of them so that we can make them permanently affordable housing and have them not be at the mercy of the speculative market. Out of gathering last week, the organizers and tenants announced their victory, permanent affordable housing in the building, which they said was a triumph over a corporate greed that has become all too common in cities like Boston. When the corporate landlord decided to buy these buildings, they wanted to raise their

6:16rents and evict people and they thought it was going to be an easy thing. But they didn't reckon with the tenant association that got organized to fight it. And that tenant association waged a long, long battle, years in order to first defeat affixions and secondly to get the building purchased by the local non-profit. So that's a big victory. It's not only fending off the rent increase, but it's a permanent victory. This victory represents their remarkable tenacity encouraged the tenants' association has displayed for more than half a decade. While they succeeded last week, the fight for affordable housing does not stop here. Because of their courage in this fight and forming a tenant association and trusting that process, now they're able to stay in these homes at the affordable rents and be able to live comfortably, which is what we want as an organization, as a community, as a city, as a nation. Food insecurity is one of the most prevalent problems we're facing here in mass.

7:18And many who face these challenges also have to bear the weight of other issues, like mobility, transportation, busy schedules, and limited access to healthy food. That's where Project Dash comes in. Started in 2018 and expanded to the Boston area in August 2025, Project Dash is a food delivery program from Door Dash that leverages its logistics technology to provide subsidized local delivery of charitable food and essential items to people in need. It partners with food banks, pantries, and organizations to remove transportation barriers and reduce food insecurity. In August 2025, Project Dash teamed up with Boston Medical Center to bring this incredible resource to residents here in Boston. Giving us to speak about Project Dash and how it's already uplifting residents in our neighborhoods is Daniella Mishani, Door Dash Public Engagement Manager for New England. Enjoy our conversation.

8:20Daniella Mishani from Door Dash, thank you so much for joining us today. Of course, thanks for having me. Awesome. So, I would love to get started in talking about Project Dash. It's been very successful, been happening in the Boston metropolitan area since August of last year. Tell us a little bit about what Project Dash is and why it was created. Yeah. So, at Door Dash, we believe that no one should ever go hungry, period. So Project Dash was launched in 2018 to empower food banks, food pantries, and other community organizations to deliver food and other essential items, right to people's doors using Door Dash technology and logistics and the network of local dashers. So, these partnerships that we have all over the Boston area in Massachusetts and nationwide eliminate barriers to food access by, and these barriers include, you know, lack of transportation,

9:20mobility issues, stigma. So we're able to serve participants with dignity, with reliability, and with care. And these deliveries are completed by dashers with the recipients receiving updates along the way, just like any other order on Door Dash. Awesome. Yeah. I mean, it's really incredible to see this effort being made because we are really experiencing a lot of food insecurity right now, you know, not only nationwide, but right here in mass and in the Boston area. So, you know, I know you guys collaborate specifically with Boston Medical Center. Tell me about why you guys decided to partner with BMC rather than another hospital or even a nonprofit in the area. Yeah. That's a great question. We partner with over 300 food banks and pantries community organizations across the country. What makes our partnership with BMC unique is that we partner through Massachusetts mass health Medicaid 1115 waiver, which facilitates services like medically tailored meals and

10:27produce prescriptions, pantry stockings for beneficiaries with specific illnesses, and Medicaid, all this for Medicaid recipients. So really specifically proud of this partnership and BMC is a pioneer in the food as medicine space. They have roots stretching back to 2001 when they opened the country's first preventative food pantry right in the hospital. So, yeah, we're super proud to partner with them and excited to watch this grow. Absolutely. BMC is a huge resource for residents here in Boston. So it's a great choice and collaboration, you know. And something that's really interesting about this program is the delivery aspect. A lot of food pantries, like you were saying, you have to be able to be mobile enough to get to the food pantry, not only that, but bring the food back to your house. That can be public transit issues, that can be like you were saying mobility issues, if

11:28somebody has any disable, disablement. And you know, why was it important for delivery service like Doridash, which is sort of an unlikely partner in this, but it does make a lot of sense? Why was it important for Doridash to supply what they do best in delivering things to get involved with the needs of our communities? Yeah. So, like you said, home delivery is really key to helping organizations like Boston Medical maximize their impact in community, it helps reach members of the community facing mobility challenges that you reference seniors, people working multiple jobs, parents who don't have child care, students who don't have a card to get to the nearest grocery store. It's a convenient and dignified way of receiving essential nutrition, and especially for the folks that BMC services. And it also helps, Project Dash helps these organizations innovate without having to set up their own home delivery programs, which is really logistically challenging, requires

12:33a lot of upfront investment with Project Dash, the logistics exists, the technology exists, the network of drivers exists, and they're excited to do it. So it just makes it a lot easier for them to focus on what really matters, which is making sure that they're providing nutritious food to their communities in a dignified way. Yeah. I mean, it sounds a little bit too good to be true for maybe some, so could you, you know, Danielle, if you're able to, could you tell us a little bit about the process, you know, from somebody finding out about Project Dash to the food showing up on their doorstep, what does that usually look like for somebody who qualifies? Yeah, so it works a little differently every time, sometimes partner comes, sometimes partners come to us, sometimes we go to them, this is why we do, you know, things like this. We're always trying to get the word out about Project Dash. So partners will come to us, tell us about the needs of their program, we'll have a conversation

13:35with the Project Dash team to figure out, you know, what makes sense for them logistically, what kind of support they're looking for, and then we can get them set up and running in a very short window of time, and they can start delivering pretty much immediately. So logistically, it's very simple, much more simple than what it would be like for these programs to start their own home delivery programs, and then, like I said, logistically it works exactly like DoorDash works in any other capacity, you, the, BMC tells us who they want meals delivered to, they package the bags, they identify the patients or the recipients, and we pick up those deliveries or dashers pick up those deliveries and distribute them to the client directly, and the client receives updates just like you would in a regular home delivery that you were receiving on any other DoorDash order. Simple enough, I think it's an incredible idea, and, you know, like you said, using these

14:39systems that are already in place to help uplift everybody is exactly what we need right now, and I'm curious about sort of what the reaction reception has been for people who have received the food packages. It's an overwhelmingly positive BMC conducted a focus group of ten of their recipients who unanimously said that give them the choice of having delivery with less food or pick up with more food, they choose delivery with one recipient sharing that because of the delivery they've been able to have enough time to go to the park with their son, which we know health is holistic, you know, home delivery not only provides healthy and nutritious meals, but also it helps families save time and worry less about where their next meal is going to come from, and that opens up time for all sorts of other ways that they can live healthier, more fulfilling lives. So this work really helps, you know, hungry neighbors, organizations that are helping to feed them, and it also provides earning opportunities for dashers who complete these

15:43deliveries, and many dashers have told us that participating in project dash helps them feel closer to their communities and helps them feel good about doing good locally. They don't have to go very far to be part of the fabric of their communities and help out locally, so that's been really great feedback that we've received as well. Absolutely. I did a little personal detail, I just went grocery shopping this weekend and it took me over an hour, I was sweating by the end, and I had a mom right in front of me with the cutest baby and I was just sort of making conversation with her and she was saying, you know, her husband and she had other kids in the car and she had a huge car and I was just thinking about project dash and I was like, how much something like this could have saved her so much time, energy that she could have been dedicating to doing other things as a mom. So that's just one example of how a program like this can really uplift anybody who is in need of it. So thank you so much and tell us, Danielle, where viewers can learn

16:45more about project dash. Yep, so you can learn more by visiting our website, Dordash.com. We're following at Dordash Impact on all the channel, Facebook, Instagram, X. Well, thank you so much, Danielle, for joining us today and telling us all about project dash and I hope to hear more good things and more good programs coming out of you guys soon. For sure, thanks so much for having me and for giving us a chance to talk about this program. Like I said, this helps us get the word out and partner with more and more organizations. So hopefully, people are excited to hear about what we're doing and we'll reach out to us if they're wanting to learn more. Thanks for watching Boston. That's our broadcast for tonight. You can also hear us on the radio on WBC at 1.2.9 Fridays at 7.30 p.m. and Monday at 9.00 p.m. And remember, you can catch new episodes of BNN News every Wednesday and Friday starting at 5.30. For BNN News, I'm Natalie Kim. I'll see you next time.