Category: Dorchester Reporter

  • Legislators petition to name Dorchester Courthouse after the late Juvenile Court Judge Leslie E. Harris

    A new bill in the Legislature proposes to rename the Dorchester Courthouse in Codman Square for the late Judge Leslie E. Harris as tribute to the work and legacy of the lifelong educator who spent his early years as a probation officer and public defender before sitting on the bench in the Suffolk County Juvenile Court for 20 years until his retirement in 2014. 

    “If you’re from Dorchester or Roxbury, you know who Judge Harris is,” said state Rep. Chris Worrell, one of the bill’s House sponsors. “One of the only judges that you could see in community. You don’t see judges like how you saw Judge Harris at the supermarket and different kinds of events.”

    When Worrell attended Judge Harris’s wake last October, he said he saw mourners from all walks of life, from justices and elected officials to formerly incarcerated individuals, community leaders, and students. That gathering, Worrell said, reflected the life Judge Harris had lived.  

    “To rename the Dorchester District Court after Judge Leslie Harris, it was a no-brainer,” he said. “From the first day we filed the bill, hundreds of people reached out. Everyone’s excited about seeing this done.”   

    For the Harris family, the proposed designation marks a legacy of service and support and serves as a reminder that the man they called “dad” was deeply appreciated. 

    “I wish he were here to see it,” said his son Brian. “He was just dad to me. I have an opportunity to keep his legacy going, and that’s kind of our intentions.” 

    He noted that while Judge Harris was deeply involved in his community and was the kind of person who would go out of his way to help someone, it never took away from his role as a father.  

    “A lot of the people he worked with are no longer children. But some of them have children now,” Brian said. “I hope that in that legacy, their children understand that this was someone in the community who did a lot for you and made a big impact.”

    Should the bill pass, the courthouse would be the third in the state to be named after a Black legal professional, the others being the Roderick L. Ireland Courthouse in Springfield and the Edward W. Brooke Courthouse in Boston.

    “The Massachusetts Black Lawyers Association is considering what we can do as an organization to contribute to supporting that goal,” said Theresa Wilson, president-elect of the association, which is dedicated to fostering inclusivity and equity within the legal field.

    “I remember sitting in meetings with Judge Harris where he was frustrated at the lack of Black men in the juvenile court,” Wilson said. “Juvenile court is often full of little Black boys coming before judges who are making decisions about their lives.”

    As of 2021, nearly 88 percent of lawyers in Massachusetts identified as white, according to census data from the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, while young people of color made up around 60 percent of juvenile arraignments, 80 percent of pretrial detentions, and 84 percent of commitments to the Department of Youth Services, according to the Massachusetts Coalition for Juvenile Justice Reform.

    Wilson said it is essential for young people to be able to see and recognize themselves in a court system that is often “one monolithic appearance,” something Judge Harris advocated for through his work with the MBLA.

    He was the co-chair of the MBLA Judicial Academy, where he worked with his community network and co-chair Joseph Feaster to create an advisory team that supports those interested in becoming members of the judiciary.

    “We just had our second graduation for our Judicial Academy [Feb.12] for Black History Month, and we have decided to rename the Judicial Academy in honor of Judge Harris,” Wilson said. “It’s now called the MBLA Honorable Leslie E. Harris Judicial Academy.”

    In the legal profession, having a mix of people from different perspectives only makes the work done stronger, said Rodline Louijeune, president of the Boston College Law School Black Alumni Network.

    “If you asked Judge Harris if he thought he would have been a judge when he was in South Side, Chicago, he probably would have said ‘Absolutely not,’” Louijeune said. “I don’t think this time last year I would have thought that Judge Harris would only be a memory now.”

    Leslie E. Harris was a founding member of BC Law’s Black Alumni Network in 1985, when he and a few other students were looking for a way to stay in touch after graduation. BC BAN celebrated its 40th anniversary last year and works to keep alumni engaged and connected while supporting current students on their journeys to become attorneys, which, Louijeune said, is part of Harris’s legacy. 

    “As more of our icons become legacies … it’s important to remember that there’s foundational work that’s been done,” she said. “Having this physical representation of Judge Harris would be, and will be, important and foundational in ensuring that his memory lives on.”

    The House and Senate are currently resolving differences in the bill.

    “My father loved Roxbury, he loved Dorchester, he loved giving people an opportunity, and he loved connecting with people,” Brian Harris said. “We don’t want his legacy to fade away, so that’s why this is important. We hope that everybody who has been moved or motivated by him will share his legacy moving forward.”

  • Lawmakers on verge of passing new literacy standards legislation

    Late last month the Massachusetts Senate unanimously passed The Right to Read bill that the House had approved without objection last fall, moving the Legislature a big step closer to the creation of a new statewide standards for literacy education grounded in “evidence-based” curricula, including professional development for educators and supplemental funding for public schools. The final version of the bill is now in progress. 

    These actions follow Gov. Maura Healey’s awarding of $3.3 million in Partnership for Reading Success – Massachusetts literacy grants to 25 school districts last August, as part of the administration’s Literacy Launch initiative, which supports reading skills in students from kindergarten through third grade.

    While Massachusetts ranked first in 2025 in the National Assessment of Education Progress — known as the Nation’s Report Card — nearly one-third of K-3 students in the state fall below benchmark levels, according to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. (DESE). 

    “What really drove this bill forward was the data showing where reading levels stand five years after the pandemic,” said state Sen. Nick Collins of South Boston, a bill sponsor, in a statement to The Reporter. “Too many students are still falling behind in the early grades, and we know that if a child struggles to read early on, it affects everything that comes after.”

    The bill would ensure that students from kindergarten to third grade will learn to read using phonics, phonemic awareness, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension practices. Schools would have three DESE-approved options to implement curriculum, including a free comprehensive curriculum provided by the department, a list of curriculum options that meet evidence-based criteria, or a waiver authorizing another curriculum that meets the same standards but has not been reviewed or approved by DESE.     

    The legislation would also create an Early Literacy Fund with $25 million in “Fair Share” funding to help support districts with implementation and educators’ professional development. Additional resources are to be made available by DESE. 

    Educators for Excellence —a teacher-led organization advocating for increased involvement in education legislation — held a panel discussion last Wednesday (Feb. 18), where educators from schools across the state discussed the current challenges facing their students and the importance of the Right to Read bill. 

    Nearly 83 percent of educators in the state believe all teachers should use high-quality, evidence-based instructional material, according to a 2025 survey by the organization. Others say evidence-based curriculum isn’t one-size-fits-all, and limiting the teaching tools educators can use may result in students with unfulfilled needs. 

    Along with an updated curriculum, the bill would implement twice-yearly assessments to measure reading progress and screen students for dyslexia. If it appears that a student has fallen behind, schools will be required to contact a parent or guardian within 30 days.

    “This legislation is about making sure every child gets strong, research-backed reading instruction, no matter their ZIP code,” Collins wrote. “It has broad support from groups like MassPotential, The Reading League Massachusetts, EdTrust, and Decoding Dyslexia, all of whom have pushed for more consistency in how reading is taught across the commonwealth.”

  • Boston-based college readiness program helps underprivileged students succeed

    Truman Dickerson

    Carolyn De Jesus Martinez, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic, spent a chunk of her high school years bouncing around homeless shelters in Boston. As a result, she said, school became “a very safe space” for her, and she founded her own “girls who code” club.

    Yet with limited financial resources, and the pressing need to provide money for her family, her dream of attending college faced an uphill battle – until her guidance counselor recommended that she apply to the Upward Project, a Boston-based program that provides stipends and academic support to first-generation college students.

    “Even the summer before I went to school, they set me off with a laptop and also we had professional clothing, attire that they bought for us,” Martinez said. “The Upward Project helped me pay for my health insurance.”

    Martinez, now 26, credits the program with enabling her graduation from Wesleyan University in Connecticut with math and computer science degrees. She now works for a restaurant management company and last year bought a house in western Massachusetts, she said.

    Mindy Wright, a former history teacher at Boston Preparatory Charter Public School, founded the Upward Project in 2018 as a way to help first-generation, underprivileged college students “navigate a very unfamiliar space,” she said.

    A group of The Upward Project scholars gathered for a celebratory event last summer. The project is led by Dorchester resident Mindy Wright, shown at top. Photos courtesy The Upward Project

    The program has grown more than threefold over the past eight years, from six participants in 2018 to twenty spots available in this year’s cohort. It all started with the help of one “angel investor,” Wright said, and now 80 percent of its fundraising dollars comes from individual donors.

    “The experience of a first-gen, low-income student is very different than that of a student who might come from a middle-class or more affluent background,” Wright said. “So much of the work that we’re doing at the Upward Project is … replicating the suite of privileges that many of our students’ affluent peers have access to.”

    Participants are chosen from among high-achieving high school seniors across Boston. Once accepted, they have access to internship funding, mental health resources, and a $10,000 fund they are free to draw from during their four years at college.

    “That [fund] is what allows our students to be full citizens on their college campus,” Wright said. “Should an emergency come up where your laptop is broken, we can replace it, or if you have to fly home for something unexpectedly.”

    For Wright, who is herself the daughter of immigrants, many of the programs, stipends, and support systems offered to students come from challenges she personally experienced during her time at Colby College in Maine, where, she said, she felt a sense of isolation made starker by her inability to express her concerns to her parents, whom she “didn’t want to stress out” about college.

    “They were supportive and loving when it came to me being in college, but I couldn’t specifically call them with a challenge I was having, because they just would not know how to navigate it,” she said, adding:

    “I felt really embarrassed, and nobody around me was articulating their struggle or their frustration or how isolated they felt. I felt like I was very much kind of navigating it on my own.”

    Diana Alvarado, the Upward Project’s senior program manager, said a large part of her job entails giving moral support to students who often are minority members of primarily white institutions.

    “I think college has a very particular way of making you very aware of your identities,” she said, noting that teens from Boston are used to existing in specific immigrant communities, and that their identities often become reductively simplified in college.

    If you’re “the only Latinx student in a room, or the only student from an urban area in a room, that is usually pretty palpable,” she said.

    Once the program’s crop of students is selected, Wright said, the acceptees first do a “two-week summer intensive,” where they go over details about health insurance, accommodation requests, and placement exams.

    Program administrators then stay in close contact with the students throughout college. Martinez said that while she went through a mental health struggle at Wesleyan, Wright helped her continue applying to internships while she saw a therapist. 

    “We really pride ourselves on our individualized, personalized, culturally responsive approach that we’re taking, and that’s something that I don’t think is happening anywhere else,” Wright said.

    This story is a product of a partnership between the Dorchester Reporter and the Boston University Department of Journalism.

  • Burst pipe in UMass Boston dorm leaves 600-plus students searching for refuge

    Kelly Broder

    Waterlogged belongings, makeshift beds, and unresolved frustration defined this past week for students on UMass Boston’s Columbia Point campus who say the administration has not done enough to support the more than 600 of them students who were displaced after a 10th-floor pipe burst in the East Residence Hall a week ago Monday (Feb. 9).

    “I feel like I’m begging, you know,” said freshman Yairamar Oropeza. “I’m begging for crumbs.” 

    Roughly 50 rooms were affected by water damage, but the now-broken fire suppression system is keeping students in all rooms from returning, university officials said. The burst forced residents — mostly freshman and transfer students — to evacuate and seek alternative housing.

    The university has offered all students in East Residence Hall housing on UMass Amherst’s Charles River campus in Newton, a roughly 30-minute drive from Columbia Point and a more than two-hour trip on public transit. 

    Some 130 students are now being housed at the Charles River campus, while others, said Karen Ferrer-Muñiz, the vice chancellor for student affairs,  are living in the DoubleTree hotel on Mount Vernon Street, which is about a 15-minute walk from the campus center.

    Many more students are staying with friends in UMass Boston’s West Residence Hall, have gone home, or have found housing elsewhere.

    For Oropeza, the past week has been exhausting. As a second-floor resident on the opposite side of East Residence Hall from where the flooding took place, she was offered housing at the Charles River campus, but, she said, students there did not have bedding, towels, or anything more than what they brought with them when they were evacuated.

    “We thought it’d only be like 10 minutes,” Oropeza said of the fire alarm evacuation.  

    Later in the evening, officials from UMass Boston purchased bedding from a nearby Target but not enough for all the students at the Newton campus. “Other people just slept using their backpacks as a pillow and their coats as a blanket,” she said. 

    Oropeza noted that she has stayed at three different places since the pipe burst — the Charles River campus, a friend’s West Residence Hall dorm, and with her boyfriend in Cambridge. 

    Students at the Charles River campus say laundry facilities are not easily accessible, and that staying there and keeping up with schoolwork is difficult. 

    UMass Boston shuttles are going between the two campuses starting at 6:45 a.m. and continuing every hour until the last one leaves the UMass Boston Campus Center at 10 p.m., the residence hall support page on the school site says. The school has also partnered with Uber to transport students cost-free to and from the University Station shopping mall in Westwood from the Newton campus. 

    Students from the Sustainable UMass Boston club started a clothing drive for students displaced by the East Residence Hall closure. The drive will be open 12-8 p.m daily until Friday, Feb. 20. Kelly Broder photo

    Students on campus have banded together to support their dorm-less peers by hosting a clothing and essential items drive. The evacuees, who were offered $1,000 from an emergency relief fund, according to Ferrer-Muñiz, were allowed back into their rooms on Wed., Feb. 11, to retrieve essential items like clothing and medication. They were then asked to move out the remainder of their belongings on Friday, when they came back to find tables full of free clothing, toiletries, and water bottles, and Saturday afternoon.

    In an email to students last Friday, the university said it would provide moving trucks to transport student belongings to nearby short-term storage units. 

    Eli Hochkeppel, a junior, said they offered their own clothes to their friends who were affected, “but once I got permission to have a larger space, I started asking other people for donations. It really blew up” they said. 

    Hochkeppel said they feel that support organizations like U-ACCESS and the Office of Student Leadership and Community Engagement have done more for students than the school administration. 

    Added Oropeza: “These students, they’re really the heart of UMass Boston, because they really, really have been supporting one another through all of this.”

    Students have been using YikYak, a social media app that allows users within a roughly 5-mile radius to post anonymous messages, share resources and discuss the residence hall situation. 

    The first floor dining commons reopened last Wednesday morning for regular meal hours, but the remaining residential floors will stay closed while flood remediation crews work to restore the damaged rooms. State inspectors are coming “in and out constantly” to assess things, said Ferrer-Muñiz.

    She noted that flood remediation crews are working through “different stages of restoration” and that there is no definitive timeline for when the building, or certain floors, might reopen. 

    Students should contact university officials if they need help, she said. “Instead of wondering, please come in and talk to one of us. We want to see them. We want to help them. We want to talk to them.” 

    This story is part of a partnership between the Dorchester Reporter and the Boston University Department of Journalism. 

  • Tết in Boston fest ‘shows our unity as a community’

    Truman Dickerson

    For Jiachao Chen, a 15-year-old immigrant from China, the 37th annual “Tết in Boston” Lunar New Year celebration reminded him of the importance of keeping cultural traditions alive, even when you’re far from home.

    “It’s comforting because it shows people not forgetting their roots,” the Malden resident said. “It shows our unity as a community.”

    More that 6,000 people attended this year’s Tết in Boston celebration, held last Sunday in the Thomas M. Menino Convention & Exhibition Center. Attendees, many of whom wore traditional Vietnamese “Ao Dai” dresses, snacked on East Asian sweets, sipped on matcha, and listened to live music in the spacious hall.

    Among the revelers was US Rep. Ayanna Pressley, who said in an interview that the event’s festivities stood in stark contrast to President Trump’s “xenophobic and anti-immigrant” rhetoric. 

    “I love that people are choosing community, and I love that people again are celebrating, or being unapologetic in their expressions of cultural pride and heritage,” the Democratic congresswoman said. “Everyone is feeling vulnerable, and it’s very important that we continue to be strong.”

    Several East Asian countries, including Vietnam, China, and Korea, use the lunar calendar for the observance of holidays. This year’s Tết in Boston was organized by the Vietnamese-American Community of Massachusetts and the New England Intercollegiate Vietnamese Student Association.

    “It’s a special time for families to connect, reunite, honor ancestors, uphold years of traditions, and prepare to bring good fortune into the home,” organizers wrote in the official Tết in Boston magazine. “The year of the Horse ignites strength, ambition, and the perseverance of hard work.”

    Theresa Tran, 30, of Dorchester, was in years past on the festival’s planning committee. This year’s gathering was the first to be held in Boston’s largest convention hall “because it’s growing so big,” she said.

    “Dorchester is a home of many Vietnamese refugees and many Vietnamese immigrants,” she said. “Coming together to celebrate the New Year is very important.”

    One of the sponsors of the festival was Boston Little Saigon, which, according to its website, aims to “highlight, recognize, and preserve” the Vietnamese “community’s significant contributions to Dorchester’s unique history of immigrant experiences.”

    Many Vietnamese people migrated to Dorchester after Saigon fell to North Vietnamese forces in 1975, Tran said. The Tết in Boston festival, she noted, helps to bring out this “older generation” of Vietnamese immigrants together with immigrant communities from other parts of Massachusetts. 

    “I’ve been a part of Dorchester ever since I was a kid, because that’s where I went to Vietnamese school,” she said. “I got baptized at the church there.”

    Sally Nguyen, the co-president of Suffolk University’s Vietnamese Student Association, said the presence of several collegiate organizations at the event helps Massachusetts’ Vietnamese community. “It’s a good way for us to stay in touch with our culture and the broader community outside of our school,” the 22-year-old said.

    Dozens of East Asian small businesses set up shop in the large hall, selling food items to lines of customers. In one booth, employees pushed stalks of sugar cane into compactors. At another, about 30 people waited in line to buy Japanese matcha.

    “I really want to go downstairs and just try all the food,” said Deven Dang, 19, of Hyde Park. “But I have to stay up here and check all these people in.”

    Dang and Isabel Nguyen, both students at UMass Boston with Vietnamese heritage, wore traditional Vietnamese “Ao Dai” outfits, which translates to “long dress,” Nguyen said.

    “It’s formal. There are different styles,” said the 19-year-old Dorchester resident. “It’s really something that represents our culture and our community.”

    Dang said the festival offered a rare space to feel connected rather than fractured, saying, “Even in this country, even though it’s kind of divided as of right now, we still want to come together as a community.”

    This story is the product of a partnership between the Dorchester Reporter and the Boston University Department of Journalism.

  • Back-to-back snowstorms move electeds to pitch ‘strike force’ for removal efforts

    State Sen. Nick Collins and City Councillors Brian Worrell and Ed Flynn want to augment Boston’s snow-removal approach by establishing a snow clearance strike force. 

    Citing the “extra strain” on city workers when there is a heavy snowfall, Worrell proposed hiring a group of seasonal shovelers that can be deployed to help clear snow from high-traffic pedestrian areas, along with a group of volunteers who would shovel pathways for homeowners with limited mobility or are otherwise unable to do so themselves. 

    “The more investments, the more people that can help our public works department, the better they are out there,” Worrell said. 

    Last week, the District 4 councillor filed a request for a public hearing, and Flynn requested a hearing to discuss purchasing snow-melters to expedite its removal. These asks came in the week after the Jan. 25-26 northeaster dropped 23 inches of snow on Boston – and before another 4 inches fell this past weekend. 

    Flynn pointed to efforts made by South Boston’s Labouré Center, part of Catholic Charities Boston, which once ran a “Snow Angels” program that paired volunteer snow-clearers with older neighbors and people with disabilities.

    The scene along Savin Hill Avenue on Feb. 9, 2026. Seth Daniel photo

    “It is important for us to look at scaling a similar program across the city to help our neighbors in need when it comes to these difficult conditions that bring accessibility issues,” Flynn said. 

    The city requires property owners to clear sidewalks and curb ramps within three hours after snowfall stops. If it snowed overnight, those areas must be cleared within three hours after sunrise.

    Worrell said a corps of seasonal hires could be deployed to shovel and sand high-traffic public areas like bus stops, T stations, and key sidewalks.

    Collins said he has reached out to both the Massachusetts Department of Transportation and the Massachusetts Port Authority requesting the use of their snow-melting services once they complete statewide duties. That could mean heating and filtering the snow from salt and other chemicals before discharging it through the waste plant at Deer Island, he said. 

    “When we have a significant amount of snowfall that may not be prepared for… sometimes you need to go to the old-fashioned shovel, but you need people to do that,” said Collins, whose district includes Dorchester.

    However, his appeal to state agencies drew a rebuke from the president of one of the city’s largest public employees union last week.

    Chris Stockbridge, who leads the AFSCME Local Council 93, which includes many of the city’s public works employees, said Collins was ignoring the “reality on the ground.

    “Instead of recognizing the hardworking men and women, many of whom are your own constituents… who worked tirelessly for days and nights to keep the city running and looking its best,” he said, “you chose to use this moment as a personal platform to take shots at the mayor because of political disagreements.”

    Nick Gove, interim Chief of Streets for the city of Boston, spoke at a press conference about snow removal operations on Feb. 6, 2026. John Wilcox/City of Boston photo

    Mayor Michelle Wu, in public remarks last week about the city’s snow response, noted that the Jan. 25-26 storm was one of the top ten largest snowfall events in the city’s history. City code enforcement officers issued more than 2,800 violations to property owners who failed to clear their sidewalks, according to Nick Gove, the interim Chief of Streets in Boston. That number included 112 tickets issued to the MBTA, he noted.

    Worrell said residents should call 311 or reach out to their district councillor’s office if there is an area that needs additional attention from snow removal services. 

    No date has been set for public hearings or a potential joint hearing on Worrell and Flynn’s proposals, according to Flynn. Worrell said he hopes it will be “as soon as possible” and encourages community members to attend and share their perspectives. 

    “That is when you start seeing real movement in local government,” Worrell said. “When people are voicing their support and willingness to take part.”

    This story is the product of a partnership between the Dorchester Reporter and Boston University’s Department of Journalism.

  • ‘Places of Resilience’— Five Dot park projects given Lee Fund grants

    Sana Muneer

    Five beloved green spaces in Dorchester will get a fresh burst of life after receiving five of a ten-grant allotment from the Henry Lee Fund for Boston Parks, which supports community-driven projects that improve parks and gardens across Boston, according to the parks advocacy groups Friends of the Public Garden.

    The Dorchester sites, which will get grants ranging from $2,000 to $5,000, are: The 89 Radcliffe Street Food Forest, Ronan Park, Adams-King Playground, Rev. Loesch Family Park, and Thetford Evans Playground.

    “Everybody has a park somewhere close to them that can be really meaningful to them,” said Liza Meyer, president of Friends of the Public Garden. “This kind of grant program can help foster that connection between neighbors and park users to build a broader network of advocates.”

    The fund, which is in its second year, honors Henry Lee, the founder of the Friends organization. Lee, who died in 2024 at 99 years old, was a lifetime advocate for equity in urban parks, according to the group. 

    The Boston Food Forest Coalition is spearheading work on the Radcliffe Street Food Forest (below), an “edible park” that integrates fruit trees and berry-laden bushes to provide food access and a community gathering space, said Liz Luc Clowes, its director of engagement and construction.

    The coalition will put its $5,000 grant toward creating multilingual educational signage for plant identification, way-finding, and instructions for harvesting. 

    “These signs really are a bridge to bring people in, because there are people from many cultures that live in Dorchester, Mattapan, and the places that we serve,” Luc Clowes said. “In some communities, people speak Spanish, Haitian Creole, Cape Verdean Creole, Chinese, Vietnamese… this is a way to bridge people together.”

    The food forest is under construction and will open later this year, Luc Clowes said.

    The St. Marks Area Civic Association will use its $5,000 to create a “mini oasis of nature in a very urban place” at Adams-King Playground by upgrading a pollinator garden and planting native perennial floral, Secretary Jamie Bemis said. 

    “We obviously wanted to enhance our community with this beautiful garden open to everyone that’s a place for people to come and get a respite from the traffic and noise of the city, and just be in nature,” Bemis said. 

    The association also aims to make the garden a sanctuary for local wildlife, specifically pollinators, through its improvements. Bemis recalled the fulfillment of seeing and hearing swarms of bees as residents added perennial plants into the garden. 

    “We’re all in this together, sharing our love for gardening and amplifying the work of creating food for our neighbors, both human and non-human alike,” she said. 

    Just a few blocks away, the trees at Rev. Loesch Family Park will get a makeover with a $5,000 grant to the nonprofit Speak for the Trees. They will be professionally pruned, an initiative that will boost their long-term health, improve shade, and influence people’s mental and physical health, said advancement director Lisa Crist. 

    “The impact of low tree canopy coverage is really being felt by people,” Crist said. “That’s everything from air quality to heat, temperature, everything from mental health to physical health to property values.” 

    The Friends of Ronan Park, a volunteer-run organization dedicated to preserving the park, received $2,000 to upgrade the entrance at Mount Ida and Holmes Avenue, President Eleni Macrakis said. 

    The group will add plants near a Little Free Library, improve pathways and repaint seat walls, she added, noting that seeing people reading books from the library or watching the sunset while sitting on the seat wall is a common occurrence in the summer. 

    “We’re just excited that a park that’s not downtown is getting attention in terms of these grant funds and recognizing that people in some of the other neighborhoods also deserve a great park space and deserve the funds that can improve the space and activate the space,” Macrakis said.

    Redefining Our Community will put its $5,000 award toward beautification efforts at the Thetford Evans site. The playground, used by local families and day care centers, will undergo perimeter plantings and general improvements, according to a press release. The organization did not respond to requests for an interview. 

    With Dorchester’s parks making up half of the Lee Fund’s recipients, the funding speaks to the neighborhood’s dedication to urban biodiversity. 

    “People are learning from each other and meeting the moment, the moment for the climate, the moment for food access,” Luc Clowes said. “As there are increasing changes in the country, open spaces are really important for people to have a place to gather.”

    The grant also reflect the strength of Dorchester’s local groups in recognizing the neighborhood as a socioeconomically diverse place and providing for those individuals in the ways they know best. 

    “There’s a sense of community ownership that comes from being able to see an idea through,” Meyer said, “from an initial conversation or just a light bulb moment, into actually being built and being able to be enjoyed in person.”

    Above, a summertime yoga class at Ronan Park. Photo courtesy Eleni Macrakis

    The advocacy groups’ organizers acknowledged the park projects they are working on is part of a broader initiative to establish the parks and gardens as community havens and gathering spaces that define Dorchester as a neighborhood. 

    “These are places of joy, places of resilience,” Luc Clowes said. “When we work together as a community to build them, the community’s voice is captured in the landscape.”

    This story is the product of a partnership between The Dorchester Reporter and the Boston University Department of Journalism.