Page 32 - BusinessWest February 21, 2022

Flores
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adversity over the past 50 years, while continually investing in the vitality of Greater Springfield, explains why Flores is certainly a Difference Maker.
Taking Root
Established in 1971 as a small organization
to support farm workers, NEFWC has become a multi-faceted human-services agency dedicated to
“We have different organizations still tied up with us,” he said, citing, as one example, Gándara Center, which arose from Partners for Community because a population of Latino and Puerto Rican veterans were struggling with heroin. “We were not trained psychologists, but we wanted to help those guys. So we started bringing people in who could.”
Many of the organization’s services, like its fuel-assistance program that helps low-income households with utility bills through subsidies and discounts, and its three homeless shelters for families eligible for emergency assistance, found growing need throughout the pandemic, but a more challenging environment to deliver services.
Take fuel assistance, for example. “There are federal regulations, paperwork, we give to people who give us money. But a lot of people in state government took off and were working at home. Before, you could talk to a human being. Now, you’re not talking to a human being — they give you a number, you call it, but the telephone is ringing all the time. For days, that information wasn’t transmitted,” he recalled.
“I’d have 1,600 applications here for fuel assistance ready to go, but I can’t get to the right person,” he went on. “And it’s not just me; all the state nonprofit agencies were dealing with that. The bureaucrats went home.
In other words, he said, communication broke down just as needs were rising. “It was tough, but we survived.”
Flores knows something about need. He was intimately acquainted with poverty as his family struggled for sustenance throughout his childhood in Puerto Rico. It was there, he said, that he began to identify himself with economically deprived
“Everything we have done ... I’m the figurehead, in a sense. I have a whole team that work”s with me.
improving the quality of life for thousands of low-income people throughout the Northeast.
Among its chief programs are home- energy assistance for income-eligible families in Hampden and Northern Worcester counties; emergency shelter assistance for at-risk families throughout Massachusetts; employment and
Herbie Flores’ office walls are filled with proclamations, awards, and photos of his interactions with state and national leaders.
groups and devote himself to service on their behalf — just as his experience in the military has spurred him to stay active in veterans’ causes; he was named Springfield Veteran of the Year in 2001.
Yet, through all his work with NEFWC and Partners for Community — whose services also extend to young people through HiSET support and mentoring programs, workforce-training programs for job seekers, and programs for adults with developmental disabilities or acquired brain injury — he remains humble.
“Everything we have done ... I’m the figurehead, in a sense,” he said. “I have a whole team that works with me.”
job training for migrant seasonal workers in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire,
and Rhode Island, as well as welfare-to-
work populations in Connecticut; and youth programs providing services to at-risk, low-income youth both in and out of school in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Connecticut.
And its programs, both under the NEFWC name or the Partners for Community umbrella, continue to evolve.
HATS
OFF
to our friend Heriberto Flores!
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32 FEBRUARY 21, 2022
BusinessWest
Leah Martin Photography