Heather Gately's blog

This summer, Boston Cares is pleased to be in a partnership with John Hancock Financial Services and The Boston Globe to support the 2008 Boston Summer Scholars Program. The Boston Summer Scholars program is providing 500 teenagers with on-the-job training in a corporate or non-profit environment, in addition to weekly skill-based workshops. Boston Cares is teaming up with The Boston Globe and John Hancock Financial Services to coordinate the Friday morning workshop series, which is covering topics such as personal finance, interviewing skills, and leadership.

Volunteer mentors are needed support the workshop sessions, which are held on Friday mornings, from 8:30 AM -10:30 AM – there are 4 left in need of volunteers – July 25 through August 15. (Volunteers are asked to get to the session by 7:45am). Volunteers are not required to attend all sessions, but are encouraged to sign up for as many as they are able to attend. Volunteers sit at a table with 9 youth, take attendance, participate in group activities during workshops, and distribute and collect surveys at the end.

The program still needs to recruit between 5 and 10 additional mentors for each week. Volunteers must be 21 years or older.

Here is the schedule for those workshops:

July 25 - Great Applications: How to Get it Right
Patrick Dwyer from UMass Boston
Chip Greenidge, the Bostonian Founder and President of the National Black College Alliance

August 1 - Interviewing: Before, During & After
John Hancock and Boston-native Lynette Correa of Career Coaching 4 Kidz. Lynette is a first-generation high school and college graduate Akrobatik, a performance artist from the Codman Square area of Dorchester and the voice of sports on JAMN 94.5

August 8 - In the News: Why Should You Care?
Boston Globe columnist Derrick Z. Jackson

August 15 - How a Boston Summer Scholar Leads!
Carol Fulp from John Hancock
Robert Lewis, Jr. of the Boston Foundation and two New England Revolution Soccer Players

To sign up, people only need to fill out an online form by clicking here.

The Citizens Park Summer Concert Series continues with its third concert on Friday, July 25, featuring The Bedford Big Band. The concert runs from 7-9 p.m. in Citizens Park, located on Main Street (Route 38) across from the Common. This concert is sponsored by Artisan Music Studios.

The Bedford Big Band has a repertoire spanning yesterday's classics to some of today’s best pop songs. Their tunes come from the classic big band composers such as Glenn Miller, Duke Ellington, George Gershwin, Count Basie and Bennie Goodman, Woody Herman, Buddy Rich and Stan Kenton. This Bedford-based band brings to the stage snappy instrumentals, sultry vocals and fun vocal quartets.  read more »

The Citizens Park Summer Concert Series continued with its second concert last Friday with ska band Beat Soup. The concert was sponsored by Michael de la Maza. The weather was perfect for an outdoors performance, and a large crowd of all ages gathered to see the show.

Audience members were treated to Beat Soup’s ska-influenced stylings that included both instrumental dance pieces and vocal numbers. Playing originals and covers, the 8-piece dance band from Boston featured a classic sax/trombone/trumpet horn section as well as guitar, keyboard and drums. As the sun set, audience members of all ages got up to dance to the lively beats.

This is the sixth year that the Citizens Park Summer Concert Series will entertain Woburn residents. The concerts are a great way to enjoy summer nights with your fellow community members, and at the great location also a chance to shop and have dinner in Woburn Center.

The next Concert will be on July 25th, featuring The Bedford Big Band. For a full schedule including dates, band line-up, and sponsors please click here.

Bring your family, friends and lawn chairs to Citizens Park to enjoy free concerts every other Friday throughout the summer. With generous support from local businesses, the Concert Series is free to the public.

The Citizens Park Summer Concert Series is coordinated by Social Capital Inc. (SCI), Woburn Residents’ Environmental Network (WREN) (www.GoWREN.org), and the Woburn Redevelopment Authority.

The Citizens Park Summer Concert Series continues with the second concert this Friday, July 11, featuring Beat Soup. The concert runs from 7-9 p.m. in Citizens Park, located on Main Street (Route 38) across from the Common. This concert is sponsored by Michael de la Maza.

Together since the early 1990’s and a Boston Globe Pick of the Week, Beat Soup has been compared to Bim Skala Bim, Madness, Elvis Costello and The Specials. Their original music is inspired by British Invasion Pop, 2Tone Ska, and bands like Talking Heads and even The B52s! The 8–piece dance band features the classic sax-trombone-trumpet horn section on Caribbean and Rock Beats.

Bring your family, friends and lawn chairs to Citizens Park to enjoy free concerts every other Friday throughout the summer. With generous support from local businesses, the Concert Series is free to the public.  read more »

The Sundance nominated documentary film, "Traces of the Trade" will air on PBS/POV (Channel 44) Sunday, June 29th at 9:00 p.m. SCI Board Chair and 2008 SCI Idealist Award Winner Dain Perry and his family created the film about coming to terms with their family legacy involving the slave trade. Dain and his wife Constance tour the country using the film to prompt conversations about racial reconciliation.

FILM SYNOPSIS

Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North is a unique and disturbing journey of discovery into the history and "living consequences" of one of the United States' most shameful episodes — slavery. In this bicentennial year of the U.S. abolition of the slave trade, one might think the tragedy of African slavery in the Americas has been exhaustively told. Katrina Browne thought the same, until she discovered that her slave-trading ancestors from Rhode Island were not an aberration. Rather, they were just the most prominent actors in the North's vast complicity in slavery, buried in myths of Northern innocence.  read more »