Spending a Saturday afternoon in the North End taking in the aromas and admiring the architecture seemed fabulous enough for me, so I was pleasantly surprised when this explorations tour went beyond the usual tourist fare.
While at first glance the churches and buildings along the brick sidewalks may seem like facades on a movie set, our group got a hearty helping of history, anecdotes, and trivia that seasoned the tour like a fine marinara. From the
colorful maritime history of North Street to the St. Lucy statue in St. Leonard's Church that deserves a "second glance" there was plenty of local lore to absorb and scribble onto the map handout (if you want to impress your future visitors).
As expected, there was commentary on Sacco & Vanzetti and the Molasses Flood of 1919 as well as some tie-ins to colonial days. However, we saw not only shadows of the neighborhood's past, but also a glimpse of the present. As our group strolled down and around the streets and alleyways, we encountered many friends of our tour guide which gave the tour a feeling of taking a leisurely stroll around a friendly lived-in neighborhood. At times when our group stopped into people's hidden gardens or surrounded a quaint corner house, the excursion seemed to be, as our Boston Cares project coordinator Tiffany put it, the "home invasion tour."Fortunately, our group was not unwelcome, mainly because of our enthusiastic and well-liked guide.
Our tour guide's excitement about the North End was contagious. Among the numerous factoids served up on this tour, I was intrigued to learn in the Old North Church that Paul Revere's famous signal of "two if by sea"referred to the Charles River. Additionally, we got to visit with a long-time resident whose basement houses some now blocked off tunnels with a curious connection to some allegedly stolen statues in the Old North Church. These elements made the trip feel like a true exploration of the neighborhood.
Even though our guide successfully impressed upon us the importance of seeing the North
~ Lisa Gallegos
I only joined Boston Cares this past November, and already I have found it to have become such a huge part of my life. During the winter I mainly stuck to the indoor volunteer projects (i.e. sorting baby items at Room to Grow, sorting food at the Greater Boston Food Bank, Knitting for the Greater Good, etc), so as soon as it got warm out, I was very excited to sign up for some outdoor projects! One of the projects I signed up for was the Earth Day Celebration at the Stone Zoo. I had not been to the Stone Zoo since I was in grade school, so I was very interested in going back as an adult- this time to help out!
I arrived at the Stone Zoo, which was very quick & easy to get to by car from , and met up with my group at the. After getting a bright orange T-shirt to wear for the day, the friendly staff of their Special Events team explained our duties to us and allowed us each to choose what we wanted to help out in for the day. Just a few of their many Earth Day celebration projects were: Recycle Relays, catching & inspecting insects and organisms from the pond, Arts & Crafts- making origami frogs & coloring bags, and Planting (sunflower) Seeds. Along with a few other Boston Cares members, I chose the Arts & Crafts table.
For the first half of the day, I sat at the Arts & Crafts table teaching kids, who were interested, how to make origami frogs. I had never made an origami frog before, so I was thankful that the directions were printed on the paper we were using, but by the end I was very good at making them! Some of the younger children had a bit of trouble folding the paper, but with a little assistance they had a huge smile on their face when it was completed! One child even taught me how to make a bigger one, using different folds.
After lunch, which was graciously provided by the Stone Zoo for the volunteers & was delicious, I was asked to help with the Seed Planting at the table beside the Arts & Crafts. The children lined up to plant sunflower seeds! Assisting in planting seeds was a very busy, but certainly very fun task. The two parts to the Seed Planting table were: coloring in a fun animal-printed bag with the crayons provided, then lining up to get a (biodegradable) cup to then put dirt & sunflower seeds in. Coloring with the children
was great fun- listening to their stories of what colors they were using to decorate each animal, stories of their family, and stories of their other hobbies. After coloring for a while, I moved over to the actual planting section. It was cute seeing not only the very little children excited to put dirt and seeds in a cup to later watch grow, but also a few older kids lining up! Some of the littler children needed help reaching in the dirt bin, or holding the shovel, but none of them had any trouble throwing the seeds in their cup! I quickly learned that I needed to place only a few seeds in my hand for the kids to take & place in their cup, or handfuls would be put in! It was great hearing their excitement to take the cups home to watch & grow- clearly a great way to encourage the younger generations to keep the Earth green!
The whole day at the Stone Zoo was fantastic- it was beautiful weather, people and families of all walks of life were there to celebrate Earth Day & enjoy the festivities, and everyone really did their part to help out to make it a successful day! The children all seemed to enjoy themselves & hopefully most of the sunflower seeds are growing by now!
~Molly Turner
