Category: Dorchester Reporter

  • Two marshals to lead Dot Day Parade: One-time allies in Vietnam War join forces to celebrate neighborhood

    Charlie Santangelo (right), who fought in Vietnam as a US Marine, and Tan Nhu Pham, a former policeman who survived seven years in a Việt Cộng prison camp and emigrated to Dorchester in 1993, will jointly lead June’s Dorchester Day Parade as grand marshal and honorary marshal. The two are shown in front of the Dorchester Vietnam War Memorial on Morrissey Boulevard last weekend.
    Seth Daniel photo

    For the first time in the Dorchester Day Parade’s 119-year history, the grand marshal won’t be riding alone. This June, in a commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, an American and Vietnamese veteran of the war that led up to the fall will lead the parade side by side.

    The two men – Charlie Santangelo, a 73-year-old who fought as a US Marine, and Tan Nhu Pham, a former South Vietnamese police lieutenant who survived seven years in a Việt Cộng re-education prison camp – have only met briefly since the war but they are united by their shared memory of those violent times. 

    On a recent Thursday afternoon at Twelve Bens pub in Fields Corner, where retired police officers and firefighters clustered around the bar, Santangelo leaned back in his wheelchair and took a swig of Bud Light.

    Sporting a shirt scripted with “US Marines” down the sleeve, he said, “I’m honored to do it. I’m representing all those guys. I grew up with 25 guys that I was in Vietnam with.”

    After graduating from Boston Technical High School, now John D. O’Bryant School of Math and Science, in June 1969, Santangelo hopped on the Red Line and headed to Government Center with some friends to enlist. 

    “I’m proud of this country,” he said when asked if he was drafted. He didn’t need to be. He and two high school buddies joined the Marines together. “Because they were the badasses,” he said with a grin.

    p11 santangelo in Vietnam REP 17-25_0.png
    Charlie Santangelo on the ground in Vietnam.
    Courtesy photo

    He was 18 years old when he signed on and 19 when he returned to Dorchester. He remembers the open choppers that made him feel as if the sky was below him. He remembers the fear. He also is all too familiar with the sometimes deadly cost of the trauma that war brings to everything. 

    “We mostly just talk to guys that were there,” Santangelo said, his voice dropping. “They understand. But we are dying off.”

    Nhu Pham, now 72, and a leader in the Vietnamese community in Dorchester, took a tortuous path to Boston.  

    Born in Quang Tri in 1952, he earned a law degree and became a police lieutenant before he was arrested near the Laotian border in March 1975, just weeks before South Vietnam collapsed. What followed was seven years of hard labor in a mountain prison camp, then years of weekly check-ins with government authorities. He moved to Dorchester with his family in 1993.

    Since then, Nhu Pham has built a life here and raised two children. He has been a board member for the Vietnamese-American Community of Massachusetts since 2018.

    “I love the Vietnamese community here, especially in Dorchester,” he said through an interpreter. “The community is really united and promotes culture and freedom for the loved ones in Vietnam that don’t have a voice.”

    This pairing for the parade on June 1 didn’t happen by accident. Brianne Gore, who heads the Dorchester Day planning committee, said she has been pondering how to best represent the neighborhood’s Vietnamese community in the annual march.

    “Dorchester Ave is made up of all Vietnamese businesses, and we have never had a grand marshal of Vietnamese descent before,” she explained.

    Her panel searched in vain for an American veteran of Vietnamese heritage before finding a loophole in the Dot Day bylaw that mandating that the grand marshal be an American veteran: Nothing prevents the establishing of an honorary marshal.

    After asking around, the committee selected Nhu Pham for the honorary role alongside Santangelo. 

    “It’s going to be a profound moment,” Gore said. “People are just going to see these two gentlemen riding down Dot Ave, and see the strength and the power that these gentlemen gave to the American people. It’s gonna be a really special day.”

    Santangelo was tapped as grand marshal for this year’s Dorchester Day parade with the help of Ed Kelly, an old friend, fellow veteran, third-generation firefighter – and former Dot Day grand marshal. He also is the general president of the International Association of Fire Fighters, a position he took after working as the union president for the Boston and Massachusetts chapters.

    They first met when Kelly was in grade school, and Santangelo would carpool him to hockey practice. 

    At 24, when Kelly got out of a three-year stint in the Air Force based in Florida, he returned to Dorchester to work at the firehouse with Santangelo, who every day would show up with a chocolate milk for Kelly.

    “He’s the quintessential Dorchester guy,” Kelly said, sitting across from him in Twelve Bens. “Loyal, tough, unpretentious. A loose cannon.”

    Santangelo quips that he could never be a politician – he’s not one to hold his tongue. Describing combat in Vietnam, for instance, he says Viet Cong and Vietnamese soldiers “all looked the same.”

    Still, each Memorial Day, he and Kelly gather with fellow veterans at the Dorchester Vietnam Veterans Memorial, a grassy patch abutting Savin Hill Cove with a granite slab commemorating the 84 Dorchester lives lost in the war. In noting that Vietnam-born veterans are always friendly, Santangelo shrugged and said, “They are all nice guys.”

    Now, half a century since the end, he still grapples with the legacy of a war that left some 58,000 American soldiers and an estimated 1.5 million Vietnamese, Laotians and Cambodians dead while spurring protests and draft resistance across the United States. The anti-war movement remains pertinent today.

    “Don’t let people forget about Vietnam,” Santangelo said. “When we were young kids, and young we were, we went for a reason, because we love our country.”

    He said that drive of patriotism is no longer present in this country. “We see these idiots walking around holding signs for Hamas,” he said, referring to the protests that swept the country in the last year against Israel’s conduct in Gaza. “We have to stop the brainwashing,” he continued. “Get the country back where it’s supposed to be.”

    Over the last 50 years, the war in Vietnam has been constantly studied and reexamined by historians and others with many of them concluding that it was an avoidable and tragic conflict that resulted in far too many deaths. It was also the first war that the United States lost. 

    “I don’t know if they really wanted us to be there,” Santangelo said. “We thought we were supposed to be there. We were there to fight for freedom.”

    For his part, Nhu Pham shares worries about the remembrance of the war. 

    “Maybe the media and the press have misunderstood the Vietnam War,” he said. “They label the Vietnam War the ‘dirty war.’ It’s not a dirty war. We fight for freedom.”

    For veterans like Nhu Pham and Santangelo, their time in Vietnam is worth remembering. 

    “I’m very sure that the veteran and myself will have the same thoughts,” Tan said, referring to Santangelo, “thinking about the Vietnam War as a righteous war.”

    For Santangelo, his sense of why the US went to war in Vietnam is easier to talk about than his 13 months on the ground there.

    “We went there to fight the communists and save Vietnam from communism,” he said. 

    As a longtime Dorchester resident, Santangelo said the Dorchester Day parade has evolved since he was a kid, and raising kids, in the neighborhood.

    “My kids grew up at the parade,” he said, describing how they would show up, all decked out, and line the streets of Dorchester. One year, his family hosted a cookout for upwards of 100 people afterward. “It was a big party day for all the kids. It was fun. It’s just about the community.”

    From left: Tan Nhu Pham, Khang Nguyen, and Charlie Santangelo chatted at Dorchester’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial on Morrissey Boulevard last weekend. Seth Daniel photo

    Nhu Pham is looking forward to being alongside Santangelo representing American and Vietnamese veterans. 

    “When I walk along with the veterans at the parade, it will make me remember the friends I fought along with,” he said. “I still remember it like yesterday.”

    This story derives from a partnership between the Dorchester Reporter and the Boston University Department of Journalism.

  • The 50th anniversary of ‘Black April’ centers memories for many in Vietnamese community

    “I am who I am and where I am because of Black April,” says Tran Vu of Dorchester.
    Reporter file photo

    Vietnamese community organizations are organizing the largest commemoration in Boston for the 50th anniversary of what has become known as “Black April” while continuing their push for a permanent memorial in Dorchester to uplift their voices in presenting Vietnam War narratives.

    It was on April 30, 1975, that North Vietnamese troops marched into Saigon, the name at the time of the capital city of South Vietnam, effectively ending a war involving American armed forces that had ravaged the country for a decade and more. For many Vietnamese, the collapse of their government left them no option but to flee the country and seek safety in the United States.

    Tran Vu, director of “1975: A Vietnamese Diaspora Commemoration Initiative” and a primary organizer of the commemoration, was one of many Vietnamese-born refugees who settled in Boston.

    “I am who I am and where I am because of Black April,” said Tran, whose father had fought in the war and had been sent to North Vietnamese reeducation camps before they found a path to the United States as political refugees. “Bringing this work to the public and to really be a part of the long-term vision is definitely an honor and a privilege.”

    The Dorchester-based group will host a commemoration event on Sat., April 26, from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. at Boston College High School, 150 Morrissey Blvd. The event is free, but registration is required. Go to BostonLittleSaigon.org for more info. The event will be live-streamed here.

    Tran is also involved in “Journey of Light,” a visual illustration that she created using nón lá, traditional Vietnamese conical hats that are suspended in the air, creating a space where, Tran hopes, visitors can “both experience and see the impact of the war’s legacy.” She has done variations of the installation in the past.

    Events following the Saturday commemoration at BC High will include a film screening for a documentary by a local Vietnamese filmmaker and a bilingual panel discussion at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum on Sunday, April 27 at 2 p.m. Go to jfklibrary.org to register.

    The day will also feature two flag raising ceremonies— one at Boston City Hall Plaza at 11:30 a.m. and another at the Dorchester Vietnam Veterans Memorial at 1:30 in the afternoon.

    Tran has been among those advocating for a permanent war memorial that includes Vietnamese perspectives in a section of Fields Corner’s Town Field. She spoke recently at a public hearing about allocating funding for the memorial in the city’s construction budget.

    Five other organizations, including Boston Little Saigon, have been involved in organizing both 50th anniversary events. “We’re all working collaboratively so that we can continue to amplify our community and really preserve our history and cultural narrative,” Tran said.

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

  • City tells aggrieved resident that it will address intersection safety in Codman Sq.

    Dean Toulan and city officials take the measure of things at the intersection of Washington and Armandine streets on March 11. Karyna Cheung photo

    Dean Toulan hit the new crosswalk button at Armandine and Washington streets that was installed by the city in the Codman Square neighborhood a few weeks ago and waited for the signal to change.

    The crosswalk has special meaning for Toulan, a resident of Armandine Street, who months ago sent a message to city government about his concerns for pedestrian safety after he was nearly hit by a driver trying to run a red light at the corner in November. The fact that there was no button on one side of the crossing was one safety issue that Toulan cited in a series of emails to city officials.

    Toulan spoke to The Dorchester Reporter in February about the lack of pedestrian infrastructure along the Washington Street corridor, which is used as a thoroughfare by students, parents and children at TechBoston Academy, the Dorchester YMCA, Roberts Playground and Ashmont Nursery School, where a driver alleged to have had an invalid license, a loaded gun, and drugs in his vehicle crashed into the side of the building in January. 

    Days after The Reporter published the article on pedestrian safety, including Toulan’s complaints, a city neighborhood liaison contacted the newspaper to connect with him. Now, the city has proposed fixing the issues he raised over time, beginning with minor tweaks and escalating toward major changes.

    “I think a lot of people don’t know where to start, or they feel overwhelmed, and even if you get to a certain point, what if you don’t send the invite?” Toulan said. “What if that doesn’t happen because I didn’t push?”

    Members of the Office of Neighborhood Services and other city officials, including City Councilor Brian Worrell, joined Toulan for a site walk on March 11 to examine intersections along the corridor and determine what to do.

    They suggested the work would begin with simple improvements, such as repainting crosswalks and installing new signage if needed. More significant improvements, such as traffic signaling changes, would need to involve multiple city departments. Major changes — curb bump-outs, new traffic islands on the road — would come last.

    Toulan said he is optimistic that the city is willing to move forward on the project, but it took months of emails and receiving minimal responses before there was any significant movement. Following the article and the city’s initial contact with him, Toulan emailed multiple times before finally inviting officials to a site walk.

    The Office of Neighborhood Services did not respond to The Reporter’s repeated requests for an interview. Toulan has yet to receive a formal message about what the government will do next, but he hopes the city will act quickly — not for his sake, but for the elderly and young children who use the crosswalks daily to get from one place to the next.

    “It’s about safety and making an ideal environment for that volume of foot traffic,” Toulan said.  “Why not just do it all right, once? Why do it halfway? And I think that this is an area that deserves a lot more than halfway, because we’re not even getting that.”

    •••

    A walk along Washington Street; a near miss at Armandine

    The first thing Dean Toulan points out are two spots on the road flanking Armandine Street. There used to be pylons to discourage drivers from cutting too close to the sidewalks.“It’s actually better that they’re not there anymore,” he said. “They’re just going to get run over again.”

    What hasn’t been replaced and should be, Toulan said, are the words painted in white that are meant to alert drivers: “20 MPH SLOW ZONE.” The paint on the road was not redone after Armandine Street was uprooted to install a natural gas line. That project also stripped the crosswalk of half of its paint.

    Toulan gestures to a bus stop that two cars are using as parking spaces. The stop, which services the students and elderly in the area who take the No. 26 bus, is marked by a weathered wooden bench. There is no bus shelter. As we wait for the crosswalk light to change, one of the cars pulls out of the stop and drives away. Less than 30 seconds later, another car takes its place. 

    Toulan said that the bus has to stop in the middle of the road to pick up passengers. There is nowhere else for it to go.
    He continues one block down Washington Street, stopping in front of the Ashmont Nursery School at the Ashmont Street intersection. There are plywood boards covering the side where a driver ran through the building in January.

    As we make our way back to Washington and Armandine, Toulan is talking about a bus stop that was never replaced when he breaks off mid-sentence and lunges toward the crosswalk, grabbing the shoulder of a boy on a scooter and stopping him from riding into the path of a red sedan making a curving turn onto Armandine, barely stopping.

    The boy’s mother, another kid beside her and one more in a stroller, catches up to her son. Toulan waved off her thanks and the family continued on through the intersection. He sighed, shook his head, and spots one of his neighbors and waves, pointing at the traffic.

    They laugh about it. It’s just another day.

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

  • BPS offers pipelines to classrooms for would-be ESL, special education teachers

    Melvin Caballero was once a boy picking coffee fields with his 10 siblings in Honduras while dreaming of an opportunity to pursue his passion to become an educator. Against the odds, he hitchhiked to America alone, found a family to sponsor him in Boston, graduated from high school and college, and went to work for his alma mater, Boston International High School, as a paraprofessional.

    Now, Caballero is on his way to becoming a licensed teacher through the Boston Public Schools’ Teacher Pipeline programs.

    For substitute teachers, paraprofessionals, or even career changers aspiring to become licensed educators in Massachusetts, a Pipeline Program could be the answer. Established in 2018, they aim to increase the diversity of teaching staff across the district and license more educators to teach English as a second language or work with students with moderate disabilities.

    “We’re a very multilingual district,” said Rashaun Martin, managing director of recruitment, cultivation and diversity programs at BPS. “If we have people who are licensed and teaching English as a second language, and working with those students, that’s highly beneficial. And as the district moves along with its inclusive education model, we also want as many educators as possible to be licensed in [special education].”

    The BPS Teacher Pipeline consists of three programs:

    •The Bilingual Educators/Accelerated Community to Teaching Program offers coaching and classes to prepare participants for provisional licensing tests. Despite the name, prospective candidates do not need to be bilingual.

    •The BPS Teaching Fellowship, for which Caballero is a candidate, enables participants to obtain more advanced licenses to teach ESL and moderately disabled students.

    •The Bilingual Inclusive Education Teacher Residency, a four-to-five-year program that aims to convert bilingual paraeducators or career changers into permanent BPS teachers of record with an endorsement in bilingual education and a master’s in inclusive education. BPS is offering the program for the first time for the 2025-26 school year.

    BPS data show that nearly one in two students speaks a language other than English at home. Roughly half of BPS staff are white, compared to 14.2 percent of students. The large proportion of multilingual, diverse students should be reflected in the teacher workforce, Martin said.

    This year, the BE/ACTT program has 44 enrolled candidates, 26 of whom are bilingual. There are 38 full-time teachers in the teaching fellowship, 70 percent of whom are educators of color. 

    “We’re always in the business of trying to recruit educators into the district,” Martin said. “The future of our teaching force may be sitting right here in the community.”

    When Caballero entered the country, his family helped connect him with another household in Boston that would sponsor and support him with a few conditions. One of them was for him to get a formal education.

    Caballero attended Boston International High School in Dorchester, a Boston Public School that “embraces immigrant English learners and their families,” learning English as he worked toward a high school diploma. After graduating in 2012, he earned his bachelor’s degree in education from Bridgewater State University.

    “Nobody in my family had achieved anything greater than sixth grade, and I wanted to become a role model not only for my brothers but for my nephews and my family to see that education is a good thing,” Caballero said.

    In 2020, he joined the team at his alma mater as a paraprofessional. He teaches ninth-grade science and classes for students like his young self, who began high school as English learners with limited previous formal education. He began training for an initial license in ESL this year through the Fellowship program as a BPS teacher of record for multilingual students.

    “I wanted to become more involved in ESL and helping students who, just like me, came to the States not knowing the language,” Caballero said.

    “Having an ESL license will definitely give me the opportunity to work either as an ESL teacher or supporting an ESL classroom.”

    The BE/ACTT is the first-year program within the Teacher Pipeline that provides coursework and counseling to support aspiring teachers. Through the free, 12-month program, candidates are prepped to take the Massachusetts Tests for Educator Licensure and earn a Sheltered English Immersion Endorsement, which teaches them to incorporate English learning into their classes for English language learners.

    All Massachusetts teachers are required to pass the MTELs in their chosen subject areas to become licensed. A few subjects include bilingual education, early childhood education, and secondary math and science.

    Both Caballero and Henderson Elementary School teacher Phibe Pham-Smallwood, who has completed the BE/ACTT program and Teaching Fellowship, praised the counseling support and mentorship they have received, which they both believe helped them to improve as teachers.

    “[My practitioner] comes to my classroom, she visits and she observes my lessons, and after she gives me feedback on how I am doing, what areas I could get better in, and I feel that has been a huge part,” Caballero said. “It has been a great experience to have somebody who has more experience and more knowledge sharing that with me and guiding me.”

    Caballero and Pham-Smallwood also said that the MTEL classes were essential as bilingual individuals who previously struggled with the reading and writing portions of the exams. 

    “I passed my [communication and literacy MTEL] because they saw what I needed help in. They prepped me for it,” Pham-Smallwood said. “That program was out there to prepare me, not only for my classroom, but for me to succeed.”

    As the child of immigrant parents, Pham-Smallwood was inspired by her mother, a Vietnam refugee who could not access a formal education when she was younger. Like Caballero, Pham-Smallwood is a BPS alumna and now teaches 4th grade at the Henderson Inclusion School. The classroom she works in is a mix of general and special education students, and she focuses on accommodating special education needs to the curriculum. She obtained her licenses through the BE/ACTT program and the Teaching Fellowship.

    The Teaching Fellowship is a free, accelerated one-year program for teachers of record to become licensed to teach ESL or special education.

    “Even as adults, we’re still learning like the students are learning, and you don’t want to give up,” Pham-Smallwood said. “What I want, I just got to push harder.”

    Pham-Smallwood grew up in Dorchester and South Boston. Even though she didn’t attend the school she works at now, she said the pipeline helps promote a teaching force that understands the areas students grow up in.

    “We’re from here, we live in the city, and they’re looking for teachers who understand the kids, and that’s what the pipeline is really focused on,” Pham-Smallwood said. “Teachers who are authentic with themselves and with the community.”

    Whether they’re currently paraprofessionals, recent education degree graduates, or even people working in office cubicles, Martin said he believed there are future teachers in the community who need the opportunity that the Teacher Pipeline Programs offer.

    “A lot of people out there would make great teachers. They just may not know how to go about it,” Martin said. ‘This is a really great way for us to be able to support people in that process.”

    The Teacher Pipeline Programs are now accepting applications until April 11, which can be found at teachboston.org.

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

  • How a $2 million gift has changed Family Nurturing Center’s fortunes

    When confetti exploded across her laptop screen during an executive team meeting last March, Emma Tobin panicked. “My immediate response was: This is spam,” said Tobin, who is the executive director of the Dorchester-based Family Nurturing Center. “This is the meanest spam I have ever seen.”

    The email announced that her nonprofit had won a $2 million grant from the billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott—double the amount it had applied for. Minutes later, Tobin’s team verified that the email’s sender worked for Scott’s foundation and the room erupted in celebration.

    “All four of us stood up and started dancing, because it was just the craziest moment,” Tobin said. “Easily the wildest thing that’s ever happened to me working in a nonprofit.”

    Now, a year out, Tobin’s team is still adjusting to its new reality. 

    The Center, which provides parenting education and early childhood development programs, was among the highest-scoring applicants in Scott’s first-ever open call for proposals through her Yield Giving initiative.

    Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon owner Jeff Bezos, is known for her efforts to redistribute her fortune through large-sum surprise donations to thousands of nonprofit organizations across the country.

    Unlike her typical gifts, this grant was open call, and involved a rigorous, multi-stage process that included homemade videos, write-ups, and peer review.

    The impact of this windfall extended beyond the organization’s typical annual budgeting. In a nonprofit world where grants typically come with specific requirements and detailed reporting mechanisms, Tobin said, this approach of providing funds with “no strings attached” represents a greater shift in philanthropy.

    “For somebody to say, ‘Here you go, here’s $2 million… we trust you that you’re gonna do what’s best for your organization with this money,’ it’s game-changing,” Tobin said. “It allows you to be flexible, it allows you to be creative.”

    To date, the Center has already implemented an all-staff raise, created several new positions, and expanded its reach. 

    The agency serves more than over 7,500 people annually, primarily families with young children from Dorchester, Roxbury, Mattapan, and other city neighborhoods. Most are people of color who qualify for low-income programs, Tobin said, and many are immigrants.
    •••

    Surrounded by diaper boxes and bags of coat donations, Effie Morganstern and her two-year-old daughter Lucy sat on the center’s office floor organizing a pile of flower hair clips. Squeezed tight under Lucy’s arm, her baby doll Kaya has marker streaks across her face and head. Effie talked about how the center has proven to be a vital resource for her daughter and her family.  

    “It’s a beautiful space,” she said. “We had no idea that all these toys and all these things were available for us.”

    On this icy morning in late February, Effie had dropped by the center for the monthly diaper pantry. But, she said, since discovering the space, they have come frequently for the playgroups, holiday events, and other clothing drives. For Christmas, Effie signed Lucy up for presents through the Rudolph and Friends program, expecting maybe one gift. Instead, she ended up unwrapping six high-quality Melissa & Doug toys.

    In coming to the center regularly with Lucy, Effie said, she has watched her daughter grow more comfortable in her own skin and with adults. As a parent, Effie noted, she herself has also learned some things. 

    “Being with the teachers here and seeing them interact with the kids has sort of empowered me to be more like a kid,” she said, mentioning that she had Lucy later in life at 40. “I feel like I’ve grown because they teach me how to think like a child anyway.”

    Judelys del Carmen, a program assistant at the Center, also said the organization’s philosophy had transformed her approach to parenting. “It works for the parents to really bring back who you were, so you can actually relate in really high empathy with your children,” she said.

    The Family Nurturing Center focuses on four main program areas: parenting education, early childhood development, coalition and community building, and training for other service providers.

    “This philosophy doesn’t tell parents that your children can do whatever they want,” del Carmen said. “It’s telling them, from a young age, that we can teach them to make smart choices by giving them choices. You’re not giving your power to your children; you encourage power on your children and keep maintaining yours.”

    Through the Center’s programming, a 15-week curriculum designed to prevent child abuse and neglect while fostering stronger family bonds, del Carmen began to reconstruct her role as a parent. A single mother of two adult daughters—now 28 and 26—she had struggled with her relationship with them before joining the Center’s staff.

    “The philosophy really changed my life,” she said. “It changed the relationship between me and my daughters. I didn’t think that I was going to have a relationship with my kids as grown-ups.”

    Now working as a facilitator for the Spanish-speaking group at the Center, Del Carmen is witnessing firsthand the gradual transformation of families over the course of the program.

    “It’s hard to change a life in 15 weeks, but it’s also possible,” she said. “And this is there to start that process. You see how parents come feeling that they’re powerless, and we help parents to see the personal power that they have.”


    In the playroom on the first floor, which doubles as an outpost for the diaper pantry, Nataly Dimate and Orlando Suarez sat in small red kids stools and watched as their three-year-old son Samual rummaged through buckets of toys.

    On the wall above the parents, the playroom rules are outlined in English and Spanish. The final rule: Diviértete y explora. Have fun and explore.

    The Suarezes, who immigrated from Colombia to Boston a year ago, said the Center has been one of few spaces where they have found a sense of community in the area.  “This is a space where we can speak our language,” Dimate said in Spanish. “So, we can interact with people, just with our own language.”

    On their way out the front, diaper box in hand, Suarez scooped up a lone green balloon and hid it behind his back to surprise Samual with later.   
    •••

    The timing of this grant couldn’t have been better, Tobin said, since the organization was already developing its five-year strategic plan when the grant arrived. 

    One of their first actions was giving every staff member a 7 percent raise—an action previously unthinkable. They’ve also created positions, including their first-ever marketing and communications manager and an impact and evaluation specialist, and expanded their services with virtual translation in various languages.

    Even before Scott’s gift, the Nurturing Center had experienced tremendous growth in recent years. When Tobin joined as executive director in 2022, the annual budget was $3.8 million. Today it’s $6 million. From its origins at Boston Medical Center 30 years ago, the organization now operates four service locations, including offices in Hyde Park, Brighton, and in the city of Chelsea.

    Despite the windfall, Tobin said, the organization is taking a conservative approach to the budgeting, allocating just over $400,000 of the $2 million in the first year of its strategic plan. Much of the remaining funding is invested to ensure long-term sustainability.

    “This $2 million doesn’t let us off the hook for fundraising at all,” Tobin said. “It means we have to continue to meet all these ambitious goals, and then we can use this $2 million for growth.”

    The organization is planning its fifth annual fundraising gala—scheduled for April 4 at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum, where it will honor former UMass Boston Chancellor Dr. Keith Motley and Mrs. Angela Motley. 

    While the grant hasn’t transformed the organization, it has pushed the organization out of what Tobin describes as the “resource deficit mindset” common in nonprofits.

    “These large unrestricted gifts, even for small organizations like Family Nurturing Center, have tremendous impact,” she said. “Organizations know what they need, and they actually know how to manage these resources.”

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

  • Frustrations abound over T silence on rehab of Mattapan trolley line

    The trolley rumbles up to the Ashmont/Peabody Square platform on a shallow incline before it creaks and rattles to a stop at the eastern terminal of the Mattapan Line. The doors open squeakily to let out a stream of passengers.

    New riders heading toward Mattapan take their place. The car shudders into movement and screeches slowly around the looped track, descending swiftly onto its route again.

    State Rep. Brandy Fluker-Reid, who represents parts of Dorchester, Mattapan, and the town of Milton, said the Mattapan Hi-Speed Line, which runs on a 2.6-mile loop through those neighborhoods, is like a “roller coaster.” She wasn’t the only one with that thought in mind.

    “I’ve never been a fan of it. It just looks outdated,” said Chichi Hernandez, an employee at Sweet Life Bakery and Cafe in Lower Mills. She used to commute on the trolley 10 years ago from Ashmont to the Milton Station stop. Today, she drives. “It makes me a little nervous.”

    The Mattapan Line is the last MBTA rapid transit line still using Presidents’ Conference Committee streetcars, which were introduced in the city in 1937. The last of these vehicles on the Green Line were retired in 1985, but the Mattapan trolleys have been running continuously for more than 80 years and are the oldest PCC cars still in service in the country.

    The MBTA laid out significant changes planned for the Mattapan Line in March 2018, starting with a refurbishment of the remaining serviceable PCC cars. Alongside these developments, the T introduced proposals in 2019 to bring the line’s eight stations up to ADA standards and revamp infrastructure while laying the groundwork to bring Type 9 light rail cars currently used on the Green Line to the Mattapan Line within the next 8 to 10 years. 

    Most recently, in March 2024, engineers were seeking permits to drill “exploratory borings” along the tracks to prepare the transition to Type 9 cars, which require less maintenance and can transport 212 passengers per car (PCCs can carry up to 130 riders). A year later, those Type 9s are nowhere in sight.

    The project is in its eighth year this month. Only two of the nine PCC cars have been redone, far behind schedule.

    Legislators, including Fluker-Reid and state Sen. Bill Driscoll, and some of their constituents are frustrated with how long plans are taking, coupled with a seeming lack of explanation from the T.

    “It’s clearly not a priority for the MBTA. That is evident in the fact that […] we don’t know what’s going on,” Driscoll said. “If workers were actually being posted and tasked with doing the work, I have a hard time believing that it would take this long.”

    The MBTA invested $127 million into refurbishments and the transformation combined, a total that has not changed since 2018. With potential changes in funding availability and the consistent project delays, Driscoll wondered whether the ongoing projects will cost hundreds of millions of dollars or if the money still exists.

    “It’s a real concern because of how long these delays are continuing. That money could go elsewhere or evaporate.” Driscoll said. “I think the T really needs to be the one to answer that question.”

    When plans were first announced, the MBTA aimed to complete refurbishments on its current trolley cars by 2020. Driscoll, whose constituency resides in Milton, said the MBTA “reset” its timeline on the project in 2022 following delays caused by the pandemic, unforeseen lead paint removal, and the complexity of the refurbishment. The first revamped trolley went into service in spring 2022, followed by a second in the summer. The T promised a new trolley every five to six months, but the remaining seven have not been updated.

    “[In 2022], there were MBTA officials saying, ‘We know we need to repair the relationship here with the ridership and constituency and elected officials and that we haven’t lived up to commitments. Going forward, this is the reset,’” Driscoll said. “It has not happened.”

    When Driscoll requested an update on the refurbishments after the Neponset River flooded Milton Station in February and disabled two trolleys, he did not receive an immediate response.

    Within the reset, the MBTA promised quarterly updates for legislators whose constituencies live along the line and biannual public community meetings. The MBTA hosted its last public meeting on the transformation project in June 2023 and does not have another scheduled in 2025. Both Driscoll and Fluker-Reid confirmed they last met with the organization in June 2024 and have not confirmed a new meeting.

    Fluker-Reid recalled that the MBTA took legislators on-site to see trolley refurbishments in action at the start of the reset, compared to the current lack of updates.

    “In that meeting and that site visit, we received quality information in terms of what was happening,” she said. “It seems as though our information became less clear as the project became further behind in timeline.”

    Before her time in office, Fluker-Reid said there was talk in community meetings as early as 2012 about the possibility of Type 9 light rail cars replacing the PCCs. The timeline then was also 8 to 10 years for the project. With continual delays, Fluker-Reid said, she and some of her constituents now wonder whether refurbishing the trolleys is still worth the time or money. New parts for the trolleys are difficult to obtain because of the age of the vehicles.

    “The community has been of the impression that these [Type 9] lines would be here […] And even when having done the reset, they still have not met the deadlines that they articulated,” she said. “It’s really hard to build community trust and establish credibility when they say that this is the new timeline, and then they fail to meet the benchmarks of said timeline.”

    Former Lower Mills resident Linda Lewi, once a regular commuter on the Mattapan trolley from the Milton Station stop, said she felt that upgrading the line was a “second thought” to the MBTA. When the T demolished the decrepit Adams Street stairwell at Milton Station in 2023 to begin making the station ADA compliant, Milton community leaders expressed long-held frustration on how little the MBTA had committed to improving the stop; they claimed the stairwell had been in disrepair for a decade and the demolition plan would only make poor conditions worse. The town had sued the MBTA the year prior on the issue.

    “The MBTA clearly had absolutely no intention to do anything,” Lewi said, calling conversations at community meetings “circular.” “And nobody can ever give a good reason why it’s so slow.”

    In its last community meeting – in June 2023 – on the Mattapan transformation project, the MBTA said that an accessible sloped walkway was in “early planning and design.” The old entrance to the stairwell on Adams Street remains unchanged today, with access blocked off. Passengers have to walk across the neighboring Extra Space Storage parking lot to reach the platforms from Adams Street.

    Regardless of setbacks with the transformation, some riders have fond memories of the 1940s PCCs. Dorchester resident Kathy Glynn remembered hopping on the trolleys for fun or to get around the city while growing up in Jamaica Plain. She was also open to a newer system for the Mattapan Line.

    “The important thing is that there’s a connectivity and that the schedule is such that it runs frequently enough,” she said, adding that there needed to be enough infrastructure at stops for passengers. “Other than that, I don’t have a problem if they change the style.”

    Robert Cromwell, who is 78, has been riding the Mattapan trolley for as long as he can remember. As for getting him to his destination, he says the current cars work well enough.

    “I look at the things that I can change, the things I can’t change,” he said. “If I didn’t like it, then what would be one of the reasons? Is it not going to my stop? Yeah, it goes to Mattapan Station. Is it frequent? Pretty much.”

    As project delays have piled up, Fluker-Reid and Driscoll have continually questioned the T on what will happen to the Mattapan Line. Before his more recent update request, Driscoll wrote to MBTA General Manager Phillip Eng and MassDOT Secretary Monica Tibbits-Nut in February 2024, asking whether the T was committed to completing Mattapan Line-related projects, because communication had returned to “relative silence.” He said he did not get a clarifying response. 

    In response to the Dorchester Reporter’s request for an update, the MBTA wrote that it was “committed to delivering safe, reliable, and improved service for the public across all our modes.” 

    The statement continued, “We fully and deeply understand how important the Mattapan Line is to the community and have been assessing the Mattapan Transformation effort to date to determine how best to move this project forward. We thank the community for their patience in allowing us the necessary time to ensure the next public meeting will provide sufficient information that demonstrates our commitment.”

    During her first term, Fluker-Reid sat on the Legislature’s Joint Transportation Committee. During an oversight hearing in 2023, she invited Eng to ride and experience the trolley to highlight the importance of the ongoing projects. Though an MBTA liaison said that Eng would be open to taking the trolley, he has not yet accepted the offer.

    Fluker-Reid noted that Mattapan and Dorchester residents often feel “forgotten” by large organizations like the MBTA because of the slow, uncertain progress on projects meant to benefit predominantly Black and Brown neighborhoods.

    “We all want what’s best for our community,” she said. “It’s an outdated system that is somewhat dilapidated; it does not meet the needs of modern day travel and transit; and this community deserves and needs something better.”

    This story derives from a partnership between the Dorchester Reporter and the Boston University Department of Journalism.

  • Madison Park opens up new career paths for students

    A new program at Madison Park Technical Vocational High School is exposing students to potential career paths through school-wide programming connecting high schoolers to the professional world. 

    The Career Exploration Initiative, run by the school’s Career Champions Network, hosted three career days in February, has guest speakers slated in March, and field trips scheduled in April. The program also includes a “Cardinal of the Month” award to incentivize perfect attendance and good academic standing. The prize: a $150 pair of sneakers.

    The network is a nonprofit formed four years ago by retired Northeastern professor Barry Bluestone as a partner and support system for Boston’s only vocational high school. The organization, conceived as an antidote to the school’s low graduation rate and sinking enrollment, is made up of a coalition of local leaders from more than 40 civic, business, and labor organizations striving to support Madison Park students in entering the workforce after graduation.

    Bluestone’s goal: Make the Roxbury school the hub of career technical education in Boston. 

    “When we first started working here, quite honestly, we were concerned,” he said while sitting on a concrete bench by the school’s entrance. “The attendance rate could have been much better, and the graduation rate was not what we wanted it to be.”

    Since the launch of CCN, the Madison Park graduation rate has risen and is now on par with the city average, Bluestone said, while enrollment is up 7.5 percent since 2021. The school has 20 vocational programs ranging from carpentry and automotive technology to culinary arts and TV broadcasting.

    Network co-founder Shailah Stewart said the missing puzzle piece in student success is often the ability to envision themselves in a professional role. The mantra she often uses at CCN is: “You’ve got to see it to be it.”

    Stewart, who spent her career working in education consulting, established CCN with Bluestone and Jay Ash, the CEO of the Massachusetts Competitive Partnership. The nonprofit works directly with Paul Neal, the head of the school, to design programming that best serves students.

    “I think sometimes Black and Brown kids are not confident learners, and I think it’s because of the world we live in and how people portray them,” said Neal, who graduated from a vocational high school in Andover. 

    At Madison Park, 53 percent of students are Hispanic, and 41 percent are Black, with over 85 percent of students coming from low-income households.

    “So, the idea is to bring folks in that can speak to the students, so they can understand that there are possibilities,” Neal said. “That’s the biggest piece, giving students what it is to dream about.”

    On an icy Tuesday morning in February, a dozen bleary-eyed high schoolers in sky blue scrubs fidgeted in their classroom, waiting. Mayor Wu and her team arrived first, followed by Sophia Bellegarde, a Roxbury native and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center intern. 

    Bellegarde introduced herself and described her journey from arriving in the US from Haiti as a child to working in a clinical lab to landing the Beth Israel internship. 

    “When you look for mentors, get somebody that looks like you,” she said. “That can really get you.”

    After the first day of the career fair, Bluestone said he was thrilled to see students engaging with the guest speakers. He said he hoped the conversations left students thinking: “My god, I could really do that.”

    While the students are at the heart of the initiative, Boston’s economy is a catalyst. 

    Bluestone, who has studied labor economics since 1986 and was the founding dean of Northeastern’s School of Public Policy & Urban Affairs, said the job outlook for young people in Boston is staggering.

    “There are a lot of baby boomers like myself who are now retiring,” he said. “We have an enormous need to fill that gap. We’re going to literally need hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people to learn all the trades here to meet that need.”

    For her part, Wu, who sent a letter to the city council on Feb. 10 requesting its approval to seek $750 million in state funding to renovate the Madison Park campus, remarked in front of the snow-covered school that Madison Park’s potential could not be underestimated. 

    “This school represents the gem of how we’re going to connect Boston to the economy of the future and all of the talent,” she said. 

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