Macy DeLong, Founder of Solutions at Work, is One of Five National Finalists in the Women's Venture Fund Highest Leaf Award,
June 25, 2003

New York, NY - One in every seven people in this country will experience homelessness during their lifetime. Just ask Macy DeLong, a former biology researcher at Harvard University. For nine months, DeLong slept on subway gratings, alleys, in her car, or in the graveyard only blocks away from her lab at Harvard where she managed a staff of twenty-five people.

Social workers and doctors reacted as if she were delusional when she told them that she'd been a Harvard biologist. DeLong recalled, "I had wandered through what the state had to offer a homeless person, from dangerous shelters to indifferent doctors. No one offered me an opportunity to work, to sign a lease, to get back my life."

DeLong's experience on the streets altered her perspective forever. She founded Solutions at Work fourteen years ago to help people transition out of homelessness. Today, 90% of the Solutions at Work's staff consists of both currently and formerly homeless people who help over 4,000 people annually.

The Women's Venture Fund selected Macy as one of five national finalists for the Highest Leaf Award. This award honors entrepreneurial business and professional women who have demonstrated their ability to be creative risk-takers and mentors for others within her business.

The Women's Venture Fund, Inc. is a non-profit organization that targets women entrepreneurs in underserved urban communities. As a multi-service micro-lender the Women's Venture Fund, Inc. assists these entrepreneurs in pursuing their business aspirations thereby benefitting themselves, their family and their communities.

Solutions at Work is a Cambridge, MA-based non-profit agency that helps people move out of homelessness. Solutions was founded by homeless people and is staffed primarily by currently and formerly homeless people. Solutions at Work provides clothing, furniture, moving services, automobiles, computers, leadership training, and paid transitional employment to 4,000 people annually, helping over 65,000 people since its inception in 1989.

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