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South End product Arroyo earns prestigious Neighborhood Fellows Program grant by Lou Manzo
MySouthEnd.com ContributorWednesday Mar 11, 2009 When Nelson Arroyo was a child, maybe five or six years old, a speeding car struck a young girl at the corner of East Brookline and Washington streets. Back then, an elevated train ran down the center of the street and stop signs and traffic lights were few and far between. The girl was never the same, but soon neither was the neighborhood. Arroyo’s mother, Anna Rivera, helped lead a march that changed Washington Street, making it safe for pedestrians. Soon stop signs and traffic lights appeared at most every corner.
"I always remember that. That was my first march," said Arroyo. "She [his mother] spent all of her life making sure we all had a better future. Everything I do, it’s mostly because of my mother."
And people are certainly noticing now.
On a cold, snowy night last week, The Philanthropic Initiative (TPI) hosted the 19th Annual Neighborhood Fellows Banquet to honor Boston’s unsung heroes. Founded in 1991, the Neighborhood Fellows Program grants unrestricted $30,000 personal cash awards to "social entrepreneurs who often go unrecognized, but who make a vital contribution to our quality of life."
"It was in 1991 that TPI first began looking around the city of Boston, this beautiful City on a Hill, for a certain kind of person, a special kind of person, someone who makes a big difference in a quiet way, what we have come to call unsung heroes," said Ellen Remmer, president of TPI, before presenting the awards.
Sponsored by an anonymous donor, the Neighborhood Fellows Program utilizes "spotters" around the city who report individuals to TPI. These good Samaritans are vetted and then voted upon. TPI gives out six grants each year.
Arroyo, who grew up in the South End’s Cathedral Housing Project and attended Cathedral Grammar School, was honored for his work with the Hyde Square Task Force in Jamaica Plain. For the last 12 years Arroyo has worked to transform the neighborhood.
As the president of the board of directors, Arroyo monitors the direction of the organization as a whole but still stays involved in the day-to-day activities of the teens who pass through. He first connected with the task force when he volunteered for the neighborhood crime watch.
"J.P. was not known as the city to live in. We had to become vocal with police and get the cops on the corner and start using these spaces that were being occupied [by drug dealers]. The spaces were meant for young people to enjoy themselves," said Arroyo. "We’re still working on it but we started seeing a lot of change once we got the police at the table with us."
The task force has grown over the years and now serves over 320 youth on a daily basis and 800 annually. The task force offers programs in art and recently sent their award winning dance troop, Ritmo en Acción, to perform in Paris. Besides sponsoring job training in the health care field, the task force also offers jobs to teens by training them as community organizers and tutors.
Claudio Martinez, the executive director of the task force for the last 10 years, credits much of the success of the organization back to Arroyo.
"He is very hands on but also has a very strategic vision that inspires all of the staff members who have been a part of this team for all these years," said Martinez. "Nelson has made an incredible effort bringing out the voice of people who are not usually heard in circles of power, while he is also very respectful and quite direct about the inequities that still exist in Boston."
Among the work the task force and Arroyo have accomplished, one moment stands out above the others for Arroyo. Many years ago, when the organization was much smaller, three of its teenagers prepared to go off to college. The task force surprised them with a going-away gift: laptop computers.
"As she [one of the college-bound teens] opened up the present I remember looking over to her father," said Arroyo. "I don’t remember what country he was from but when he saw the gift and how they spoke of her, he became a bit teary but also very proud. I saw the reward in her. She was very happy. But I also saw the reward in her father’s eyes. You see the reward and that’s good enough for me."
And now as Arroyo continues his work in Jamaica Plain, a few miles down the road from his childhood home, he still credits much of his success to those early days in the South End, particularly time spent at the Salvation Army Boy’s Club.
"They tried to pull us off the street and make sure we were going in the right direction," he said. "When we were in a pool tourney we taught the younger kids, same with basketball. It was always a pass-on thing. They kept us so active; something must have rubbed off the right way."
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