Join us to restore and improve Jerry’s Pond

Jerry’s Pond sits at the heart of the Alewife neighborhood of North Cambridge and for nearly 100 years, it was a vital and thriving community resource for the working-class citizens of Cambridge. It attracted hundreds of daily visitors to swim and enjoy the natural habitat. However, since 1961 it has been fenced off from public access and has become an eyesore – especially along Rindge Avenue, a major public thoroughfare with the Alewife T-stop, the Minuteman Bikeway and thousands of apartments nearby.

Launched by the Friends of Jerry’s Pond and the Cambridge Community Foundation, this fund will serve as a platform through which our community can come together to safely and responsibly restore Jerry’s Pond and improve its ecosystems for the benefit of all of the citizens of Cambridge – and its natural inhabitants as well. A historic part of the Great Swamp, the pond and its surrounding land is one of the last significant green open spaces in the City of Cambridge and we cannot afford to lose it.

We believe that Jerry’s Pond has the potential to once again be a beautiful and accessible natural landscape – a reservation and community asset for tens-of-thousands of Cambridge citizens including almost 4,000 residents living in affordable housing across Rindge Ave. who have long borne the consequences of environmental injustice, as well as for those who commute through the area each day.

Header photo of people swimming in Jerry's Pond (circa 1945) next to City-Built Bathhouse ~ the background shows Rindge Avenue and the drying sheds and kilns for the brick factory

CRLS Kids from the Mayor's Fall Youth Employment Program, painting the historic fence at the corner of Rindge Avenue and Alewife Brook Parkway, with Friends of Jerry's Pond and Meadowscaping for Biodiversity, Fall 2020

The Friends of Jerry's Pond Fund is a Fund at the Cambridge Community Foundation.

(EIN #: 046012492)

If you would like to mail a check, please write "Friends of Jerry's Pond" in the memo and send it to: Cambridge Community Foundation, 99 Bishop Allen Drive, Cambridge, MA 02139.

For more information, or for other ways to donate, please contact Michal Rubin at mrubin@Cambridgecf.org.

We are grateful to partner with the Friends of Jerry’s Pond, on this Fund. Eric Grunebaum, Co-Founder of the Friends of Jerry’s Pond, may contact donors to the fund with notes of gratitude and periodic updates. If you do not wish to be contacted in this regard, please email: eackerson@Cambridgecf.org.