Lifestyle

By Carol Masshardt Make no mistake, the forty or so ladies, ages twenties to eighties, own the bowling alley on Wednesday nights from September-April. They come from a variety of jobs, backgrounds, abilities as bowlers, and though some don’t actually recall how they came to join, they surely know why they stay. “It’s the camaraderie,” said Jeanne Hogan, who comes from her healthcare job at Tufts Medical Center. “I have only been coming about three years, but there are some thirty-plus. It is a fun group. We laugh, we bowl, there are banquets and get togethers. It breaks up the week and the winter. I have good and so good nights at the bowling, but it’s not about winning and losing,” she said. Betty Dillon [...]

By Carol Masshardt (The next few weeks will profile the running team for the SBNH) “I don’t want to sugar coat it. The dark, brutally cold morning runs can be tough, but then you see a sun rise, and I do it with all the other charity runners, so you get close and it’s worth it.” Devin Baker, originally from Montpelier, Vt. has lived in Boston for three years. She is twenty-five years old, a soccer and basketball player in her youth and now a University of Vermont graduate and an accountant. It would be easy for Devin to enjoy the fullness of her young adult life without running several days a week and “long runs” of seventeen miles on a March weekend. But running [...]

At twenty-three, Naa-Jauh Benton, a graduate student at Tufts University, is determined to combat inequities. She had a strong start working in her teen years at the SB Action Center, and the Condon Community School and an internship with the Boston Police. Other than her time as a student, graduating with honors from Bridgewater State University, she has only lived in South Boston. “I feel like the main thing I received here was an education” she said, and it began at the Condon School, “I still remember the core values of looking within yourself, knowing your strengths, and getting better and helping others. They contribute to who I am today, and I am thankful for Barbara Kelly and Deborah Flaherty who helped me develop my [...]

Twenty-five-year-old Julia Sprofera grew up in Medfield, went to college at Wake Forest in North Carolina, worked in Charlotte, but it seems as if she was destined to call South Boston home. “I knew I had to come “home” to Massachusetts after working for a year in Charlotte and so looked at a lot of neighborhoods. South Boston appealed to me because it was more of a community,” she said. Moving from apartment to apartment over three years, she is busy without seeming pressured. Working at Arbella Insurance, and pursuing an MBA at Boston College, Julia listens, observes, and engages. She has developed an appreciation of South Boston, and a recognition that it is not always easy for those who have been in the community [...]