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As the school year comes to a close, Excel High School held two events in the past week.  Sports Night took place on Thursday evening, May 31 in the school assembly hall.  The various teams and coaches were called to the stage by Mr. Brandon Arthur and other staff members and presented awards and certificates.  The annual Knight Award for overall excellence was presented to senior Claudia Camacho.  The students and staff gave a hearty round of applause to Headmaster Stephanie Sibley as she ends six years leading the school.  She was presented a framed jersey.  The prom took place on Friday evening, June 1 at Lombardos in Randolph.  Many car-pooled in long dresses and tuxedos, arriving around 7 p.m. for an evening of dinner and dancing [...]

Save the Harbor/Save the Bay awarded more than $55,000 in Better Beaches Program Grants to support more than 40 free beach events and activities on the Boston Harbor region’s public beaches this summer in a ceremony on Boston’s Fish Pier on Saturday, June 3rd, 2017. Among the 27 organizations from Nahant to Nantasket that received grants this year were five with programs in South Boston. BCYF Curley Community Center received $3500 for the Curley Community Center Summer Series, Mass Kiting received $1000 for the 3rd Annual International Kite Surfing Film Festival, South Boston Neighborhood House received $3500 for Family Fun Nights on the Beach and Olliepalooza, Greater Boston YMCA received $2500 for free swimming lessons at Carson Beach, and YES received $1767 for their program Outdoor Adventure: [...]

by Rick Winterson An important issue has been simmering in South Boston for a long time. It was emphatically brought into the open earlier this year of 2017 at a meeting of the South Boston Association of Non-Profits (SBANP). The members of SBANP spoke loudly and clearly that “Trauma” – especially childhood trauma – should become an essential focus of the SBANP mission here in South Boston. You may well ask how much of an effect trauma has on South Boston’s young people. From a non-medical, lay person’s standpoint, an accurate, meaningful answer is “a lot!” Poverty, violence, lack of good parenting, and neighborhood bullying can all be traumatic to children. And no one in South Boston has to be told that we have substance [...]

by Rick Winterson Last Sunday, May 28, the Thomas F. Fitzgerald Post, VFW No. 561 (Veterans of Foreign Wars) conducted its annual Memorial Day ceremony. This involved a solemn laying of the 2017 ceremonial wreath at the South Boston Vietnam Memorial - the nation’s first such memorial – in Medal of Honor (M Street) Park. The event was led by Ed Flynn, Commander of the Post. Occurring exactly 100 years after the U.S. entered World War I in 1917, it seemed that this year’s wreath laying was especially significant. World War I was called “The war to end all wars” soon after it ended. In part, this was due to many weapons of war that were used for the first time – gas warfare, the [...]

by Rick Winterson Sunday morning on May 21, there was the 8 a.m. Memorial Mass at St. Brigid Church for Timothy John Cook – Tim “Doc” Cook – who was a Corpsman in the Marines in Iraq. Afterward, the Timothy “Doc” Cook Foundation awarded three $1,000 scholarships in his name. This event, the Fourth Annual, took place in St. Brigid Hall. Thomas Casper, Eric Lopes, and James McDonnell were the three scholarship recipients. “Doc” was a hero in many ways – one of them, a highly unusual way. He was a Corpsman who brought medical care to the wounded on the battlefield, under actual hazardous combat conditions. In addition, he noticed that the ambulances for transporting the wounded away from the battleground were inadequate. They [...]

The A Street Park is another small green gem in South Boston, nestled in the ell formed by the State Street Building and the new parking garage. It has gentle grass slopes, curving pathways, and plenty of playing surfaces for those proverbial “children of all ages” who live in South Boston. A crowd of perhaps 100 or more showed up for a coffee-and-doughnuts mid-morning fete, on one of the few sunny May days we’ve had recently. In his remarks, Mayor Marty Walsh spoke of “green space” plans, echoing the “Emerald Necklace” concept of Frederick Law Olmstead 150 years ago. With Councilor-at-Large Michael Flaherty and Rep. Nick Collins, and accompanied by a boy named Jack, Walsh unveiled the Park’s sign.

Joseph Nee was an “Angel”, an angel nicknamed “Dodo” – the kind of angel one finds only in South Boston. You’d see him everywhere, enjoying himself and urging everyone else to have a good time, too. But behind the scenes, Dodo was a quiet, effective, non-stop mover-and-shaker for the good of our community. That was especially true of the South Boston Collaborative Center. Join us Tuesday evening, June 6, at 6 p.m. for the rededication of the Collaborative Center in Dodo’s name, immediately followed by a reception celebrating his life at The Lawn on D. by Rick Winterson The South Boston Collaborative Center was established in the mid-1990s to combat the epidemic of drug-related, teenaged suicides plaguing the South Boston community. Joseph Nee, more frequently [...]

Six Archbishop Williams High School students from South Boston were among the 124 graduates at the Braintree school’s 65th Commencement Exercises on Thursday, May 25. Front from left: Deirdre Grealy, Baileigh McCarthy, Jaelyn Kenneally. Rear: Brendan Toland, Matthew Hogan. Not shown: Christian Roche.