What's New & Exciting

• For upcoming community meetings and classes go to the Community Calendar.
• May is GoGreen month, a celebration of transportation options, recycling, and energy conservation. Events include Bike Week celebrations, commuter appreciation days, transportation fairs and presentation of the GoGreen Business awards for outstanding environmental efforts
• Are you looking for ways to improve your credit? Have you been recently denied credit? The City of Cambridge and the Consumer Credit Counseling Agency are sponsoring a “Credit 101” class on May 13th at 6:00 P. M. at the City Hall Annex Building. This workshop will help you understand the steps necessary to improve your credit and much more. Pre-registration is required for this workshop. Please call 617/349-4622 for more information and to register for this workshop.
• On May 13 a free SOMWBA Certification Information Session will be held by the State Office of Minority and Women Business Assistance and sponsored by the Community Development Department's Economic Development Division.
• Lead-Safe Cambridge, a program of the Cambridge Community Development Department, is offering a free Safer Soil information session focusing on landscape design strategies for minimizing lead hazards in urban yards. Homeowners and gardeners will learn about making yards safer for playing, gardening and living. The Information Session will take place on Monday, May 19th from 4:00 P. M. to 7:00 P. M. at Pemberton Farms & Garden Center, 2225 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge.
• Spring is here and get ready to garden! Test your soil for lead and learn what you can do to make your soil safer. Lead-Safe Cambridge's Safer Soil Program offers information and expertise.
• Attention Cambridge Tenants and Landlords! You may qualify for home improvement services through the Lead-Safe Cambridge Program!
• A variety of resources about biotechnology are available through the Economic Development Division, including the brochure Cambridge Biotech: The Brains of Biotech The Heart of Innovation, a listing of Cambridge's life science companies. In addition, a map of biotechnology company locations throughout the City is available.
• The Economic Development Division is also sponsoring two other workshops. On June 5 Business Management for Economic Downturn and on June 10 Direct Mail Strategies. The June 10 workshop will teahc you about the current media landscape, recent trends in media, industry projections and new innovations in direct mail. Includes a "hands-on" review of online support available from the U. S. Postal Service. Workshop to be held on June 10. Follow the link for more information.
• Read the Spring 2008 edition of the Economic Development Division newsletter, with a listing of small business workshops, events and happenings.
• Cambridge was recently ranked one of the best places to live and launch a business by Fortune Small Business. Out of 100 towns that feed and nurture a business, Cambridge ranked 35th. Rankings were based on percentages of new businesses, the area's business friendliness and lifestyle offerings to include arts venues and parks. Federal, state and city statistics and costs were also used to choose the towns that best blended business and pleasure.
• Cambridge is the best walking city in America, with more residents walking to work and more parks per square mile than any other city evaluated, according to a just-released study by Prevention magazine in its April 2008 issue and the American Podiatric Medical Association
• Our detailed map of Cambridge, the only map of the City showing the direction of one way streets, is now available for viewing on line. View the Getting Around in Cambridge Map. Paper copies of the map are available at the Community Development Department office and at City Hall. For a copy of the map as well as bulk orders, contact Rosalie Anders at 617/349-4604.
• Currently, the Cambridge Housing Authority is seeking senior applicants 62 years and older, for studio units available at several locations and is also seeking applicants for the Family Public Housing Program three bedroom First Available waiting list.
• Lead-Safe Cambridge is working with the Massachusetts Alliance of Portuguese Speakers and Cambridge Health Alliance in an effort to educate Portuguese-speaking painters about lead hazards at work. The collaboration has resulted in a Portuguese-language brochure targeting painters as well as an educational window display at the MAPS central office located at 1046 Cambridge Street in Cambridge
• The City of Cambridge and the Henry P. Kendall Foundation have launched a major new energy initiative called the Cambridge Energy Alliance. The initiative will operate as a non-profit organization and will provide services and financing to dramatically increase energy efficiency in Cambridge buildings of all types. In addition, the initiative will assist installations of renewable energy systems and combined heat and power systems where appropriate. Residents, businesses, and others can register their interest on the Cambridge Energy Alliance web site.
• Did you know that the City Hall Annex at 344 Broadway, the location of the Department's office, is a green building? Learn More.This file is in PDF format and requires use of the free Adobe Acrobat viewer.

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