Dear Rockers,
I am delighted to send all you a letter of deep appreciation and thanks for the wonderful way the club responded to the Youth Link fundraiser. We brought in just over $15,000 in about six weeks with 24 members contributing. It speaks to the generosity of our organization’s members but also to a certain compassion and largess of spirit that that I often experience around our club. Every contribution counts and makes a real difference but I would be remiss if I didn’t especially thank Jack Tatelman and Paul Mazonson for enlisting their friends and associates in this campaign. Out of the 120 contributors, a large number came from their superlative efforts and, of those, a good number supported the Captain’s 100 mile August row to benefit Youth Link.
Fifteen thousand dollars in prevention goes far. A dozen kids from a troubled neighborhood in Dorchester will benefit from programs that prop up threadbare dreams and open up once-closed doors. Keeping a teenager out of court and in school has an enormous ripple effect on our economy and society; helping those kids find their voices and talents through the arts, through developing life skills and overcoming poverty is happening thanks to you. One beneficiary—Daniel —asked write his own thanks:
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Hey Rowers! I once met some of you on the beach in Gloucester when a few of us came up with Carmi Paris. You’d rowed over 20 miles and had terrible blisters! For those of you who didn’t visit the website, I’m seventeen and a senior at Madison High School in Boston. I live in the Franklin Field housing development in Dorchester, which is where my mom was raised when her parents came to the US from Puerto Rico. So you could say I’m third generation from the projects.
When I was younger, Franklin Field was known as Boston’s worst neighborhood. The year before Youth Link came here, there were eight murders and almost 30 shootings—a couple even in my backyard. I’ve grown up with the sounds -- guns going off, sirens coming and going, people fighting. As a kid, you really don’t want to get hardened to violence and the things you see. But you learn to be aware of who’s around you, and how trouble gets formed and shaped. You learn to hide your fear, even if you’re scared, because in my neighborhood fear is a sign of weakness.
Through Youth Link I’ve developed skills that are changing my life. In Youth Link’s Youth and Police Initiative, I learned public speaking and how to share myself openly, even to cops I didn’t know. I’ve been mentored in writing and have become a poet. Recently I read to students at Harvard and MIT (something I couldn't have imagined a year ago!) and this summer I’m performing in Youth Link’s Hip Hop opera, Hoop Suite (Just go to this link-- https://vimeo.com/44569362 - use the password – franklin). Check it out. It’s amazing!
Having programs and mentors has made all the difference. I have a dream of going to college, leaving the projects and making it big.
Thank you Rock n Row for giving some of us a chance that even kids from the ‘hood can make it (that’s me on the right)!
Blessings to you all---
Jay Paris
