MOER Foundation, Inc. (Sponosr-A-Mind)

MOER Foundation has created programs to assist children (K-12) & families in need and to provide school supplies, food and clothing items to the children in an effort to enhance the children’s academic excellence, health, self-esteem and thereby improve their overall health, social well-being and academic performance in school.

We seek alternative approaches to enable young people to make positive life choices through
improved self perception. Through training workshops on life and vocational skill development,
leadership programs, and youth career events, we help them re-evaluate themselves and their
place in the community to deepen their awareness of their own accountability and responsibility.
We promote both individual and community growth by creating volunteer programs that engage
school and university volunteers; developing programs to help youth learn self-sufficiency, find
jobs, raise their families, and become more productive citizens; and sponsoring programs
designed to create long-term social and economic stability, while building relationships with
children, family, and the entire community. Our objective is to help young people define
themselves in positive, constructive ways and show them that success is achieved through a
cooperative community effort while failure is found in selfish actions.

The MOER Foundation began with an errand to Staples. Dr. Ali A.B.Y. Muhammed, DD needed
some office supplies and found himself chatting with a mother who did not have enough money
to buy her children school supplies. Dr. Muhammed footed her bill that day and then took the
next step and asked her what other needs for her family can he meet. That was in June 2006, and
the MOER (Making Our Environment Right) Foundation was founded that August.
The fledgling foundation’s first program was Sponsor-A-Mind, which collects school supplies
from stores and distributes them to individuals and schools in need. The program name
emphasizes the idea that contributing school supplies is not simply a matter of easing a
disadvantaged family’s needs. Rather, supporting education in this way allows contributors to
provide backing for the recipients’ development and future.
At first, Dr. Muhammed purchased the school supplies and donated them to individuals. Then he
began giving talks at community gatherings and contacted family coordinators at the local
schools, asking them for a list of what supplies were needed. Requests poured in and Dr.
Muhammed appealed to the manager of the Winter Street Staples store in Boston, where he had
met that needy mother. The person who ran that store was a district manager and offered to call
other Staples stores, which responded enthusiastically. With that, the Sponsor-A-Mind program
and the MOER Foundation have taken root and spread to numerous communities across the
United States.
The organization has grown organically in response to stated needs. Many of the children who
lacked school supplies also required winter clothes, so we initiated a coat donation drive based at
public transit stations. They needed food, so we began a food recovery program. Unfortunately,
many of the children and their mothers suffered from abuse, which inspired us to develop a
domestic violence prevention program. They also needed a place for safe recreation, so we
formed a partnership with Boston’s Community Boating so inner-city youth can get out on the
water and learn new skills.

Sponsor-A-Mind
Cambridge Croquet Club
CHW Workforce Development
Bridge FPTO
The Gents Fraternity

The focus of the MOER Foundation is to use grassroots connections to address critical issues

that affect the well being of communities of all races, colors, and creeds. Our organizational

goals are summed up in the simple statement "making our environment right while making good

communities better." Dr. Ali ABY Muhammed, Executive Director/CEO/CHW

The mission of the MOER Foundation is to identify and create social support, education, and

economic opportunities to individuals and families for the enrichment of the global community.

Of primary importance to the foundation is ensuring that we learn to live with, by, and for each

other. The Foundation is based on the simple idea that those more fortunate should help those

who are in need, especially our fellow citizens who are under-housed, live in low-income

neighborhoods, or who have recently immigrated and just settling into being productive

community members.

Through our work, we help create an environment in this country that is not fear-based. We want

to show that society can and will provide whatever people need - school supplies, coats, a hot

meal. When money is tight, people have to make decisions about what to spend on, but they

should not have to make those decisions about basic life necessities. The MOER Foundation

regards education as a fundamental necessity, and we believe that the tools to acquire an

education should be easily available to all who need them.

Finally, it is the MOER Foundation's larger goal to have the community become actively

involved in improving itself and others. We want them to think beyond the immediate need and

ask, like Dr. Muhammed has done in the Staples store, "What else can I do to help?" By taking

this step, we will create a safe, caring environment where individuals take responsibility for

helping each other and lifting the community to a new level of engagement and accomplishment.