COVID changed East Boston’s nonprofits. Needs it exposed remain today.
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On Wednesday, July 8 from 7:30 to 8:15 p.m. ET, you are invited to join us on Zoom as our interns share their insights from conversations with East Boston residents about COVID-19’s lasting impact. After their presentation, we’ll open the floor for community discussion.
This story is the second in a three-part series that seeks to pay tribute to community members in East Boston who lost their lives during the pandemic and reflect on what the pandemic tells us about today. Read the first story in the series. The COVID-19 Memorial Project was made possible with support from the Mass Cultural Council.
Leah Gregory was an English teacher working with adult non-native speakers at East Boston Harborside Community School when the COVID -19 pandemic began, abruptly halting people’s daily routines. As lockdowns took effect worldwide, Gregory became a source of support for her students who were sick or too afraid to leave their homes. She drove through eerily quiet streets late at night alongside her colleague Blanca Paci, delivering meals and gift cards.
As the virus rapidly spread, so did hunger, she said, recalling students who had stopped going out even to the grocery store fearing exposure to the virus and facing costly medical care.
“We had students pass away at this time and it was really hard,” Gregory said. “I specifically remember one family whose dad didn’t want to go to the health center out of fear for his immigration status and not knowing how he would pay for coverage.”
According to staff members who we spoke with at seven East Boston nonprofit community organizations, the virus moved faster than organizations could respond. In a matter of days, organizations designed for education, environmental justice and youth work suddenly became food distributors, day cares and emotional support systems.
Gloria DeVine, an engagement director at East Boston Social Centers, said she remembers how deep the anxiety ran in the Centers’ community during the early days of the pandemic.
“Originally, it was fear, fear of the unknown,” said DeVine. “I wasn’t sure how families would survive if we weren’t here,” she added, when considering that all early learners and school-age children received free meals at the Social Centers. “We closed down one day, but the next we were trying to figure out how we were going to reopen.”
Justin Pasquariello, the Social Centers’ chief executive officer, said there was also uncertainty about whether these community organizations would be able to continue operating and paying staff, if the pandemic forced them to close indefinitely.
“There were so many levels of trying to figure out what was going on, how to stay safe, how to stay financially solvent when nothing was guaranteed,” Pasquariello said.
The staff at the Social Centers and other neighborhood organizations were also navigating fears of their own health and loved ones. Michele D’Ambrosio, the social centers’ director of early learning programs, said she showed up every day knowing the risk was just as real for her as it was for the families she served, a worry that increasingly weighed on people, she said.
“As things progressed, emotions turned into being nervous, scared and worried,” not only for the community but for her own family, including her elderly mother, D’Ambrosio said, sharing the dilemma she and others also faced at the time.
Joe Gaeta, the executive director at East Boston’s YMCA, described having a “terrible feeling” during those early weeks of the pandemic.
“It was scary, because information was coming out fast, and it was changing as fast as it was coming out,” Gaeta said. “We had to adapt quickly. We went from being six feet away and washing hands to ‘if you have it, you’re out for 15 days.’”
By July 2020, Suffolk County, Massachusetts — which includes Boston, Chelsea, Revere and Winthrop — ranked second in per-capita infection rates nationwide.
As the effects of COVID began to unfold, word spread about the growing hunger in the neighborhood, particularly among school children. East Boston’s YMCA quickly became another hub for meal distribution. They served breakfast, lunch and dinner bags every weekday to ensure that families had enough food for the weekend and distributed additional meals to each household member on Fridays.
“We were doing full meal services out of the YMCA, handing out almost a million bags to the community in 2020,” Gaeta said.
The YMCA remained open for emergency child care and food distribution throughout the pandemic. For Gaeta, that meant waking up at 4 a.m. and taking an Uber to work with his essential worker documents in hand.
On arrival, he would immediately accept the food order for the day and begin prepping for distribution. As employees trickled in, they completed temperature checks and health screenings.
From 9 a.m. to noon, masked and standing six feet apart, staff handed out meals to residents who queued up, also standing six feet from each other. Once the last bags were distributed, they would begin preparing bags for the next day, often working 14-hour days to meet the overwhelming demand.
Meeting cultural needs also required attention in East Boston, where more than half the population identifies as Latine and a sizable Muslim community is present. Zaida, an outreach worker at Mutual Aid Eastie, said the organization prioritized serving meals for people from different cultural backgrounds and religious beliefs.
“We found a mosque and a Muslim chef, and we were making like 1,000 meals a day to give to the mosque community,” said Zaida, who provided only her first name to protect her privacy.
With the schools closed, child care was crucial. forcing nonprofits like the Social Centers and YMCA to get even more involved in their families’ lives. Pasquariello said how the pandemic complicated teaching as well, requiring creative ways to keep students safe and engaged.
For many educators, balancing the multitude of health protocols and having to redesign lessons around social distancing, made even the simplest parts of teaching difficult.
“Some of the teachers made that experience fun,” said Pasquariello, but a lot of teachers and students were frustrated, he added, which made it hard to get everyone onboard.
As the pandemic continued, nonprofits expanded their services while also increasing collaboration.
Rita Lara, executive director at Maverick Landing Community Services, which provides youth and food programs, ESOL classes and other services, emphasized how neighborhood nonprofits came together.
“We’re all different organizational systems, but suddenly there’s one big problem, and we’re all working on it,” said Lara, who recalls how they supported each other, offering a shared strength in moments of emotional burnout.
“We often did things in teams of two when we were out doing drop offs,” Lara said. “So we were taking care of each other in those basic ways. I mean, it was a collective trauma.”
Many of the nonprofit workers interviewed said they rarely had time to process their work and coinciding feelings.
Kannan Thiruvengadam, executive director at Eastie Farms, an urban agriculture organization that works on food access and education, said he feels that the work and the needs have continued even if the public health emergency is over.
“For me, I feel like I’m still in it,” Thiruvengadam said of the pandemic. “I guess I don’t have as much appreciation as I should for what a special thing it is to be able to step up and respond and grow from and continue to sustain the operations, because the need is still there. It was always there,” expanding on his experience with COVID-19.
While COVID-19 was devastating, new initiatives emerged that continue to serve communities today. Some of these being the YMCA food truck that serves as a pantry, weekly food bag distribution at East Boston Social Centers and the integration of digital skills training into ESOL classes at East Boston Harborside school.
Although the pandemic exposed deep needs across East Boston, it also revealed the strength of its nonprofits and the people they were serving.
“Connecting as people that care for each other was a beautiful thing and that really did show me how much humanity there is in communities that can be awakened during my time of intense need and hardship,” Thiruvengadam said.
Coming next Wednesday, the final story in the series with a look at conditions facing residents today. Plus, join us for a live online discussion!
— Story by Melody Marichalar
— Copy edited by Valerie Izquierdo
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