COVER STORY
Heroes 2020
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PRESENTED BY WORCESTER MAGAZINE
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he world turns on small kindnesses, more so now when times feel unbearably bleak. By any standard, 2020 has been a terrible year, one where a disease tainted nearly every aspect of our lives. The way we live has been altered, and the fault lines beneath
our society have begun to rumble. As people died around the world, we learned the hard way that there were structural weaknesses throughout our healthcare and educational systems, and indeed, throughout our entire economy. Racial injustice took the spotlight as a string of deaths of unarmed
people of color brought protesters into the street. Lastly, a heated election showed fissures in our very democracy, as unfounded claims of voter fraud erode some people’s trust in our electoral process. The headlines are enough to make you want to curl up and hide. There are people, though, who did not hide, but instead stepped into the gap, doing what they could to make Worcester a better place. They helped their neighbors, they found ways to help children’s education while schools were closed. They fed the hungry
and fought for justice at every turn. To paraphrase one person in the stories that follow, Worcester became its own heroes. From city leaders working around the clock to deliver a pandemic response, to workers ranging from firefighters to grocery store clerks who faced danger just to keep the city’s wheels turning. There is no way we could possibly recognize everyone who deserves it in such a trying year, but what follows are profiles of eight people or organizations that, we feel, made an enormous impact with small acts
of kindness, who changed lives simply by extending a hand when it was needed. (Metaphorically. We’re still not allowed to touch hands.) These aren’t the people in the spotlight all year round. They’re not seeking fame or political influence. Indeed, several of them were reluctant to let us shine a light on them at all, preferring the light be on the people who need it most, but their efforts have not not gone unnoticed. When everything seemed darkest, they were among the ones that shined brightest.
MUTUAL AID WORCESTER
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Ute Gray, left, and Deb Powers represent Mutual Aid Worcester RICK CINCLAIR
and potential solutions. When a crisis on the scale of a pandemic hits, it serves as a stress test to highlight the cracks in the system, unfortunately when society’s vulnerable fall through them. Many initiatives that started as crisis responses are making the shift to sustained social justice movements. “This needs to continue even after the crisis is over,” said Powers, “because we were seeing gaps that needed to be filled.” While MAW isn’t going anywhere, there are currently
no plans to make the leap to an official nonprofit group. The benefits associated with nonprofit status would be outweighed by how “that ties your hands,” Powers explained. Instead, when needed, other organizations can be fiscal sponsors — when a nonprofit shares its legal and tax-exempt status with a project that shares its mission. “MAW is the face of Worcester,” she said, “and Worcester residents are their own heroes.” – Veer Mudambi
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to request or receive help. MAW’s mission is not only limited to short-term assistance — members of the group are advocating for widespread change in the city’s pandemic response as well, especially relating to people of color. “Being involved in Mutual Aid Worcester Education Group has highlighted one point,” said member Bill Gardiner, “that the remote learning going on in the city isn’t very robust and a lot of Black and Latin students have been left out of it.” The public schools’ remote learning system consists primarily of Google classroom, with teacherstudent communication restricted to email. In addition to issues with work engagement and response time, work is rendered impossible if the student doesn’t have access to a computer. “We were looking for someone who could donate their time to refurbishing laptops that people were willing to donate to the cause,” Gardiner explained. The laptops would then be delivered by volunteers. The initiative stalled due to lack of financial resources, something Gardiner attributes to its specialized nature, as opposed to more basic resources such as food, which received large donations from area stores and restaurants. Despite initial setbacks, the MAW Education Group still plans to enable parents, students and teachers to make themselves heard. The group hopes to organize a town hall-style Zoom conference where community members can discuss their needs
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resources for parents looking for enrichment activities for children — a mix of online and offline ideas — during the initial remote learning period, which stretched to the rest of the school year. On March 16, they posted the Mobile Meal schedule of the school district announcing free breakfast and lunch or supper meals for all children 18 or younger. In the days following, they posted about free coronavirus testing resources, help with pharmacy pick-ups for medicines, emergency handwashing stations for unsheltered neighbors, emergency food alternatives for pet food, and availability of home made cloth face masks. Despite Powers’ indication that she “hates talking about the Facebook group itself, when there are people who work very hard behind the scenes to deliver food and masks,” it is the social media presence of MAW that makes the difference. It allows the organization to spread the word and assist with coordination for the actual work to have an impact. For instance, Powers talked of a few food pantries that started because of the need and were able to use MAW to pull people together. As the group expands, to better organize requests and offers of aid, Powers has created sub-groups based on neighborhoods, allowing members to further localize their efforts. There are currently five: North, South, East side, West side and Central Worcester MAW. By utilizing the groups feature, residents can connect directly with their closest neighbors
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n March 13, even before the statewide shutdown of schools, Worcester Public Schools proactively closed for three weeks to protect students and staff during the pandemic and prevent community spread of COVID-19. In addition to the lack of inclass academic instruction and social interaction, children would be facing the lack of school lunches — an even more basic need for the thousands of children for whom it may be their only hot, nutritious meal of the day. That was when an idea began to germinate, one that would grow into a thriving grassroots effort called Mutual Aid Worcester. The aim is to help Worcester communities identify individual needs and develop community solutions in response. It began as a Facebook page for residents to reach out to one another and provide support. Deb Powers, who helped start and now manages the Facebook page, warns, “Don’t make me sound like a hero because I’m not — the people who are actually out there devoting their miles, their hands, their lives, are the real heroes.” However, it is something of a full-time job. MAW clearly distinguishes between mutual aid and charity on the Facebook page. Mutual aid is about meeting each other’s needs in a practical manner while solving immediate problems in a grassroots, bottom-up way, and charity is usually donated funds where they get to determine who is deserving. On March 14, the very first post on the Facebook page suggests
