Boston Garden Contest Accepting Entries Through July 12
The annual Boston Garden Contest is underway again this year, and is accepting entries through July 12. All Bostonians and business owners who have landscaped, planted flowers, trees, and shrubs. The contest was first introduced 17 years ago as a wa South End Patch News
Over the Hump: 6 Items to Help You Through Wednesday
Are Wednesdays really so tough? Well, yes, they can be. Here, though, is to keeping things in perspective. For more than a month now, Patch and Grape-Nuts have teamed up to present stories about your neighbors – neighbors who have faced challenges that would seem insurmountable to many of us. But not to the people we’ve featured in this series, Journeys. Not surprisingly, the stories have generated dozens of comments on Patch and on Facebook: “Great story…” “Thanks for sharing…” “So wonderfully inspiring…” And, so, here they are again. Great stories shared to inspire. Take a look at what these people have faced. Then click on the story to see their responses. And feel better about your tough Wednesday. Local Woman Helps Run Girls Soccer Club in Haiti For Taryn Silver, what began as a 10-day trip to Haiti in 2011 turned into a new home and close to 50 new friends. A former Sharon resident, Silver helps run the Association Sportives des Jeunes Filles de Fond des Blancs (The Sports Association of Young Women of Fond des Blancs), a girls soccer club in the rural town of Fond-des-Blancs, about 70 miles west of the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince. The club offers an opportunity that Haitian women rarely get due to lack of funding, time and also due to the cultural roles Haitian men and women often play. ___ Cleanup Organizer Sees a Future of Smaller Footprints Pat Conaway is “kind of a nut” about the environment, and when he retired from teaching in 2008, it didn’t take long for him to find a number of productive ways to spend his time. He now sees hope in the young people who help him clean trails, waterways and roadways. “I wanted to get people fired up about the environment, to try to encourage citizens to get involved locally,” he said. ___ Home Sales for the Love of Rescued Animals Three years ago while on the Internet, Weston real estate agent Leslie Mann read a story on the Internet that horrified her: A female pit bull-type dog named Turtle had been abandoned in a wooded area in the middle of winter. Badly injured, Turtle showed signs of being a bait dog, one used to test the fighting instinct of a potential fight dog. The Animal Rescue League of Boston stepped in to help, and nursed Turtle back to health through six months of treatment at Tufts Veterinary Hospital in Walpole. The story was enough to inspire Mann to raise about $ 6,000 for Turtle’s treatment. And even though Turtle is now on the mend, Mann and her husband, both […]
Governor, Mayor Extend ‘Shelter In Place’ Order Through Entire City
Governor Deval Patrick and Police Commissioner Ed David (Speaking for Mayor Tom Menino) have extended the “Shelter in Place” recommendation to all of Boston. “We’re asking people to shelter in place. In other words, to stay indoors with their doors locked and not to open their door for anyone other than a properly identified law enforcement officer,” said Patrick in a press conference in Watertown this morning. The order is an extension of the previous shelter recommendation, which included Watertown, Waltham, Newton, Belmont, Cambridge and Allston/Brighton. The new order means there are approximately 935,000 people are now locked in their homes. “Please understand we have an armed and dangerous person(s) still at large and police actively pursuing every lead in this active emergency event. Please be patient and use common sense until this person(s) are apprehended,” read a statement from the mayor’s office. South End Patch
Amtrak Ridership Skyrockets on Route Through Back Bay Station
Short-range Amtrak travel has soared over the past 15 years and Boston’s Back Bay and South Station are stops on the two most popular routes in the Northeast Corridor. According to a Brookings Institution report, Amtrak ridership has grown by 55 percent since 1997 — most of this increase is short-distance routes (less than 400 miles). Eighty-three percent of all Amtrak ridership in 2012 was via short-distance routes. The two most popular routes in the Northeast Corridor are the Acela and Northeast Regional, which both make stops in Boston. Both routes are slightly more than 300 miles. The Acela had 3.395 million riders in 2012 while the Northeast Regional, which makes more stops, had more than 8 million riders. That’s an increase of 1 million riders in 15 years for the Northeast Regional (the Acela did not exist in 1997), according to the report. “Those two routes generated a net operating balance of $ 205.4 million in 2011, with $ 178.8 million derived from Acela operations alone. This is not a new phenomenon as over the five fiscal years ending in 2011, these two Northeast Corridor routes delivered an average positive balance of $ 135.9 million per year. They also generated this return via their own operations—the two routes received essentially no state funding support for operations during those five years,” according to the report. “However, since Amtrak owns most of the track in the Northeast Corridor and must maintain the tracks for its own services plus regional freight and commuter functions, it incurs higher long-term depreciation costs not included in these operating statistics,” reported the Brookings Institution. Adie Tomer, associate fellow at the Brookings Institution and one of the authors of the report, told The Boston Globe: “If you’re close to another big metropolitan market and the train runs frequently, people are going to take it,” Tomer said. “When distances extend past about 400 miles, any individual is going to think long and hard about taking a flight, for time considerations alone.” SOUTH END PATCH: Facebook | Twitter | E-mail Updates South End Patch
Through a Teacher’s Eyes: New Photo Project By Boston Educator
“A student has to be a valedictorian – or bring a gun to school – in order to be considered newsworthy,” says Amika Kemmler-Ernst. An educator for more than 40 years, she’s talking about our tendency to focus on either the great or the horrible, while paying less attention to everything in between. A teacher of children and a mentor to teachers, Dr. Kemmler-Ernst is now officially retired. But in an ongoing visual ethnography project, she’s been visiting Boston Public Schools (BPS) and taking pictures of normal kids in action, learning at school. It’s a passion she’s indulged in throughout a career teaching in Brookline, Boston, around Africa, and in Italy. Shelved at her Jamaica Plain home, bulging albums hold photos of kids at work, in their classrooms, and on the field trips of her own design. Always, she asks students to add their own words to explain what’s they are doing in the pictures. “I wanted to find a way to celebrate ordinary kids,” says Kemmler-Ernst. A photographer who’s not into camera lenses and gadgets, Kemmler-Ernst’s tool of choice is a modest point-and-shoot that she uses without a flash, the better to blend in during the mornings she’s making pictures at a school. She looks for kids engaged in their work. With a circling motion of her arm, she redirects students to turn away from her and not pose for the camera. After editing the photos, she returns to the classrooms to ask the students in the pictures to explain what they are doing and learning. (Schools help select photos for publication and check media permissions.) The resulting text and photos become tabloid-page-size stories about individual schools, currently being published as a series by the Boston Teachers Union on their website and newsletter under the title, “We’re Learning Here.” Mostly teachers are exposed to Kemmler-Ernst’s work. She’s gratified when she hears from a teacher that her stories themselves can instruct. But she also wishes the general public were more aware of all the good happening in BPS. Kemmler-Ernst recalls noticing during her own graduate studies at Harvard that much research looks at pathology, examines what doesn’t work, and focuses on the negative. So while her “We’re Learning Here” series intentionally deals with the everyday, there are always small surprises to be discovered. For example, during her recent visit to the Clapp Innovation School in Dorchester, Kemmler-Ernst peeked in on a P.E. class. The teacher, Ms. Scott, was working on a yoga lesson. But what struck Kemmler-Ernst was that the walls were papered with word lists, used for spelling and vocabulary purposes in many a classroom. But here, in the gym, an uncommon […]
MBTA Service Shutdown Through Sunday
As crews continue to dig out from the blizzard, MBTA service will remain suspended Sunday. The goal is to have service restored by Monday. Feb. 11, according to MBTA.com/weather. “The safety of customers and employees continues to be the MBTA’s top priority,” according to the site. “This continued suspension of service allows MBTA and MBCR personnel to concentrate all of their efforts on getting the transit system, from subway to bus to commuter rail, up and running as soon as possible,” the site says. South End Patch