Mayor Wu Outlines Early Education, Recovery, and Equity Agenda at Boston Research Bureau Luncheon

BOSTON — July 19, 2026 — Mayor Wu and Boston Foundation chief call for bold action on recovery and equity at Research Bureau luncheon. Mayor Michelle Wu addressed business, civic, and philanthropic leaders at the Boston Municipal Research Bureau's first major in-person gathering since the pandemic, drawing a sustained parallel between contemporary resistance to disruption and the Anti-Subway League that nearly blocked the nation's first subway in the 1890s. Wu announced that 1,000 more four-year-olds and hundreds more three-year-olds will enroll in quality pre-K this coming school year through the city's new Office of Early Childhood, and highlighted a $17 million blended-meals contract awarded to City Fresh Foods as the largest non-combination city contract ever given to a certified Black-owned business. Boston Foundation President and CEO M. Lee Pelton followed with the foundation's new "our new pathway" strategic plan, citing 2015 Federal Reserve Bank of Boston data showing white Bostonians held a median net worth of roughly $225,000 against $8 for Black Bostonians — a gap he said had barely moved — and a Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation estimate that closing the racial wealth gap could raise the commonwealth's GDP by $25 billion over five years.