Newsletter Contents:
- Note from Gail
- Trainings, Workshops & Services
- Re-entry Update
- Volunteer Awards
- Get Involved
- AmazonSmile
- Support CDSC in 2022
Newsletter Contents:
- Note from Gail
- Trainings, Workshops & Services
- Support CDSC in 2022
- Meet CDSC Intern: David London
- The Value of Effective Co- Mediation with Deborah Heller
- Get Involved
Newsletter Contents:
- Note from Gail
- CDSC Bash!
- Trainings
- Pathways Program
- Farewell to Debra
- AmazonSmile
- Support CDSC in 2023
Newsletter Contents:
- Note from Gail
- CDSC Virtual Bash!
- Meet Our Youth Coordinator
- CDSC Diversity Taskforce
- CDSC Mediator Spotlight
- Trainings, Workshops & Services
- Get Involved
Newsletter Contents:
- 2021 Mimi Grosser Volunteer Mediator Awards
- Meet our CDSC Interns
- CDSC Mediation Case Story
- Update on CDSC's District Court Work
- Trainings, Workshops & Services
- Get Involved
Newsletter Contents:
- Letter from Executive Director
- Welcome Our new Housing Case Manager
- Diversity Initiative
- Training, Workshops & Services
- CDSC Roundtables
- Volutneer Mediators Launch Book Club
- Get Involved
For more than two decades, Mimi Grosser has been an invaluable player in the CDSC lineup and a role model for at least two generations of CDSC volunteer mediators, interns and Board members.
The Mimi Grosser Scholarship Fund was created to honor Grosser and to spotlight the extraordinary service of CDSC’s cadre of volunteer mediators. The Mimi Fund, as it is known, provides scholarship support for deserving participants in CDSC training and professional development programs.
CDSC is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization established in 1979. To learn more about mediation and training opportunities, or to make a gift to the Mimi Grosser Scholarship Fund please click here.
Gail Packer (left) was hired in 1988 as the Executive Director of the Community Dispute Settlement Center. Packer and Mimi Grosser (right), a volunteer at the time, have worked closely for 27 years, building a strong working relationship and helping thousands of people resolve conflicts in Cambridge and beyond.
The Picture of Dedication: 27 Years Later
In 1987, Mimi Grosser’s idea of “retirement” was to learn more about something new: the emerging field of conflict resolution. At the time, Grosser was retiring from a distinguished career as a teacher at Newton North High School. After twenty years of teaching history, Grosser wanted to know more about how people resolve conflicts peacefully and collaboratively: she was drawn to learn more about community mediation.
Grosser, a long-time Cambridge resident, found her way to the Community Dispute Settlement Center (CDSC), then a program of the Cambridgeport Problem Center. She enrolled in a 30-hour Mediation Training with the intention of doing volunteer work in her retirement. She wound up staying at CDSC for 27 years.
NEWS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
Please Contact: Danae Kristiansen, CDSC 617-876-5376
VOLUNTEERS FOR 20 YEARS HONORED AT CDSC
(Cambridge, MA) June 24, 2014: The Community Dispute Settlement Center (CDSC) honored two volunteer mediators with Mimi Grosser Scholarship Fund Awards: Dr. Roberta Kosberg and Jo-Ann Leinwand. They also honored Cambridge resident Ellen Kanner for her efforts as their pro bono fundraising consultant.
Roberta Kosberg, Ph.D., is a professor of Communication at Curry College and author of several studies that examine the power of language and the relationship of gender, power and the word. Dr. Kosberg has been a volunteer mediator at CDSC for nearly 20 years and has conducted more than 200 mediation sessions.
Jo-Ann Leinwand, a former president of the Greater Boston Women’s Council of Realtors, is an Accredited Buyer’s Realtor, a Certified Luxury Home Marketing Specialist and a Certified Home Staging Professional at Keller Williams Realty. Leinwand has been a member of the CDSC court-based mediation team since 2001 with more than 100 court—mediated cases to her credit.
Ellen Kanner has led development efforts at many non-profit organizations in Boston and in the Berkshires, where she was a resident until 2002. She trained as a mediator with CDSC in 2010 and has served as its pro bono development consultant since that time.
Two Cambridge Nonprofits Named Nonprofit Excellence Award Finalists
BOSTON- May X, 2014The Massachusetts Nonprofit Network(MNN) is pleased to announce that two Cambridge nonprofits: Community Dispute Settlement Center, Inc., a mediation-services organization, and Adrienne Klein, Community Outreach Director of Cambridge Community Services, a youth-development organization, have been selected as finalists for the 2014 Nonprofit Excellence Awards. The Excellence Awards will be presented at MNN’s celebration of Nonprofit Awareness Day, a statewide holiday on June 9 that highlights the work of the nonprofit sector and raises awareness of causes throughout Massachusetts.