Kroc Center team is ever at the ready to assist Bostonians impacted by disasters such as house fires. Truman Dickerson reports…
When an apartment building in Mattapan went up in flames last month, the Boston Fire Department, as usual, responded to put out the blaze.
But also responding that day were members of the Boston Salvation Army’s Emergency Disaster Services, based out of the Kroc Center in Dorchester.
“I was sitting next to a survivor as she’s accepting her kids off the bus,” said Rob Bennett, director of business operations at the Kroc Center. “We had some conversation. We had a prayer. It’s a full-service support system.”
The Salvation Army has regularly responded to disasters around Boston, helping to get victims back on their feet after devastation by filling an important niche that firefighters, who are busy battling the blaze, are often unable to give.
“We provide emotional, spiritual care,” said Heather MacFarlane, director of communications, marketing, and public relations for the group’s Massachusetts division. “We invite people to come back into our corps if they need long-term social services.”
Tangible items that the group provides to victims include clothing kits, hygienic materials, and large backpacks. In lieu of a fire truck, members of the disaster service drive to locations in a $150,000 “canteen truck,” funds for which were donated in 2022 by Dan Flatley, a Boston philanthropist.
Rob Bennett looking out from the truck. Photo by Truman Dickerson.
Emily Mew, the Salvation Army’s director of emergency disaster services, said the group coordinates closely with the Fire Department. In the case of the Mattapan fire, Mew said she contacted the BFD’s victim assistance chief to say: “Let us know what you see. Let us know what the needs are.”
Boston’s new fire commissioner, Rodney Marshall, has in the past volunteered “several times” at Salvation Army events in the Kroc Center, Mew said.
The Fire Department “recognizes how much the Salvation Army gives to families in crisis,” MacFarlane said. “When those guys and women have the chance to come and volunteer, they’re the first people to help.”
Disaster response is only one service out of many that the 102 employees at the Kroc Center perform.
At the center last week, several older women sat waiting for rides back home upon the conclusion of “senior social day,” the largest such program in Dorchester, Bennett said. The women had just finished a game of bingo.
“Everybody gets along with everybody,” said Anna Frelch, 81, of Dorchester. “There’s always something to do.”
Sarah Johnson, 81, also of Dorchester, said she’s been coming to the Kroc Center for eight years. She came to Boston 60 years ago from Alabama, where she was friendly with Rosa Parks.
Johnson recalled sitting on the porch as a child, calling out to Parks as she walked down the street.
“Hi, Mrs. Rosa!” Johnson recalled saying to Parks. “And she would say, ‘Hi, children!’”
While emergency responses are often the public face of the Salvation Army’s work, Bennett said they frequently mark the start of an ongoing connection between survivors and the Kroc Center.
“They’re like, ‘I just lost everything. Nobody’s going to help me,’” Bennett said. “Then all of a sudden, the Salvation Army’s here, doing all these things. They don’t understand that we’ve been here the whole time,” he added.
This story is the product of a partnership between the Dorchester Reporter and the Boston University Department of Journalism.