Unsung Hero: Boston College volunteers clean up students’ rep
Published: May 13, 2005
The Allston-Brighton Boston Healthy Coalition recognizes residents who quietly contribute to making Allston-Brighton safe and welcoming on a daily basis. The award declares them role models for their actions, teachers for their words and inspirations to us all.
The volunteers from Boston College are everywhere.
You can find them filling grocery bags for food bank recipients, playing street hockey with local kids at the YMCA and planting flowers at the local community gardens.
Even through the winter snowstorms, students organize about 15 service days to clean up the grounds of neighborhood schools and libraries.
Kristin Pineo of the West End House said students provide one-on-one tutoring for local kids.
“One volunteer did some improv comedy with students to bring the kids out,” Pineo said.
It is estimated that about one-third of the college’s students volunteer in the community. But BC employees also work to make a difference in Allston-Brighton.
Victoria Megias-Batista, principal of Garfield Elementary School in Brighton, said her students look forward to the arrival of faculty volunteers each week.
BC employees come into Garfield classrooms to read aloud to students every Tuesday on their lunch breaks.
“It’s an extra resource, other individuals that the kids can look up to,” said Megias-Batista, who said the Read Aloud Program has been at the school for at least the past seven years.
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BC student athletes also volunteer at the school by becoming pen pals to the elementary schoolers and through motivational speaking. Student athletes who join HEAR, or Help Educate through Athletic Responsibility, speak to the younger students about how to achieve their goals
For them, being around these huge guys and girls, it’s something that makes them feel special,” said Megias-Batista.
Students ask questions that range from the serious -”How do you avoid peer pressure?” -to silly - “How many teeth do hockey players have knocked out?” Moe Maloney, who runs the program out of the BC Neighborhood Center, said the award is long over due for the hardworking volunteers.
“I’m just a middle person. They do all the work,” said Maloney, a former BC baseball coach and BC grad.
Maloney said the volunteers’ work also extends outside of the neighborhood. Last year a group of 591 BC volunteers traveled to Appalachia during spring break to lend their services to the poor mountain region, said Maloney.
“They blow my mind. I can’t speak highly enough of them,” said Maloney. “Their hearts and their minds are so into helping others.”
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