More Than Words (MTW)

Mtw is a social enterprise that empowers system-involved youth to take charge of their lives by taking charge of a business. We serve the boston area's most underserved young people who face compounding risk factors: 50% are involved in the foster care system, 25% are court-involved, and 30% are homeless. Over the past 20 years, mtw has developed and refined a model that consistently empowers youth to achieve measurable outcomes in education, work, and life. At mtw youth begin with intensive supportive services to help them get stabilized and ready for job training, including work on essential documents, transportation, food security, and housing. Then youth earn a job managing every facet of a $3m+ business, developing valuable, transferable skills approximately 20 hours/week. Youth source used books and clothing items, sell them online and in two retail stores, run a flexible event space, and go out into the community on a mobile bookstore. They also hold a second, equally important you job, in which they receive intensive case management to work towards personal goals. Two years of continued support in the career services program and access to bridge funding help youth transition to other jobs, persist in education, and get on a path to a living wage. Through this transformative program, we provide the structure, accountability, and support needed to empower our youth to do the hard work of transforming their own lives. This model works because work works. In our most recently completed fiscal year we served 335 youth. 65% of graduates were productively engaged in school and/or work over 30 hours/week and 96% of youth either had earned or were on track to earn their high school diploma or hiset.