In 1989, a group of faith, labor, and community leaders created the Merrimack Valley Project (MVP) to unite people across the region’s widening racial, ethnic, and economic rifts in common action to strengthen our communities. Since 1989, people like the Rev. Victor Jarvis, an evangelical pastor from Lawrence, Annia Lembert, a Dominican immigrant and Malden Mills inspector and union member in Lawrence, Father Jim Dukowski, a Catholic priest from Lowell, and Eric Kintner, a physicist from an Episcopal church in Westford have worked together to save over 1,600 manufacturing jobs in the Valley, protect over 600 units of affordable housing, improve the job prospects of the region’s growing temporary worker population, and bring over $10 million to the Valley for housing, job training, and community development.

MVP’s innovative campaigns to fight plant closings, create democratic economic institutions such as the tenant-owned Amesbury Gardens in Lawrence, and to address the explosive growth of the temporary labor industry, which employs over 15,000 Valley residents and 70,000 people in Massachusetts, have offered statewide and national organizing models and have had an impact far beyond our region.

Today, MVP is made up of 40+ member groups, including congregations, local labor unions, and community-based organizations from Amesbury, Andover, Chelmsford, Haverhill, Lawrence, Lowell, North Andover, and Westford.

We are now part of a growing faith-and-values-based organizing movement in America, as affiliate members of both Massachusetts Communities Action Network (MCAN). In recent years, MVP has focused on the immediate needs of Valley residents, including ongoing campaigns in the areas of economic, criminal, and immigrant justice. These campaigns have focused on providing more opportunities for Valley residents, addressing glaring gaps in our region's struggle to fight addiction, and providing a sense of community and acceptance for some of the region's most vulnerable populations.