credit: Courtesy photo



On Monday, December 18, Mayor Thomas M. Menino and John Christian from the Boston Public Health Commission, urged this homeless woman to go to a shelter for the night. She refused help until her friend talked her into going. The mayor, along with close to 300 volunteers, took to the streets of Boston where homeless people are known to spend the night, and urged them to enter a shelter. They also offered medical attention, blankets and food. This annual event helps the city keeps records of the number of homeless living in the city. The census results will be released in January, according to the mayor’s office.

credit: Courtesy photo
caption: Fisher College students Lisa Francis (third from bottom) and Dorcella Eddith (third from top), pictured with Fisher College President Charles C. Perkins, were honored earlier this year with the Citizens Scholar Award. As standout students in Fisher’s Division of Continuing Education, Francis and Eddith each received $1,000 scholarships from the Citizens Bank Foundation.





Junior Mendoza, a soft-spoken 20-year-old with elegant eyelashes, has called his mother twice a day – every day – since arriving at Fisher College this fall. By Columbus Day weekend, he was homesick and tempted to return to his family, but he had come too far to go back now. “I started thinking about my mother and how she wanted me to succeed, and that got me through,” he said. “She is my tower of strength.”

Mendoza is no ordinary college freshman. He is the first in his family to go to college, and it was not easy to get him there. Though his circumstances are unique, his story is not uncommon among the students at Back Bay’s Fisher College, which specializes in degree and certificate programs for non-traditional students.

“It was hard at the beginning because my family didn’t have any money,” Mendoza said. With his pregnant mother and younger sister, Mendoza emigrated from the Dominican Republic 14 years ago and settled in Union City, New Jersey, where his father was already working as a cab driver.

When Mendoza’s father became disabled in a 1994 car accident, the family sought welfare assistance. Soon after, it was discovered that his younger sister had contracted lead poisoning as an infant in the Dominican Republic and that his youngest sister, born in New Jersey, had diabetes. Mendoza watched his mother work as a housekeeper to support the family of five.

“Basically, my mom was the only one working until I was 15,” he said. He got his first job as a mover with a delivery service and later went to work as a supermarket cashier, a position that gave him the flexibility to play baseball after school.

“It wasn’t as much money as my first job but it was enough to help the family,” he said. However, the family filed for bankruptcy before Mendoza graduated from high school, and college was far from his mind.

Instead, he began working full-time at the supermarket, usually on a shift that lasted from 2 p.m. to 2 a.m. “When I finished high school, it wasn’t in my plans to go to college. I was just going to work and help out my family,” he said. His father never graduated from high school, and though his mother did, no one in Mendoza’s extended family had pursued a college education.

Not many of Mendoza’s friends from Union City went to college either. He remembered his mother’s words: “Look at those guys on the street. I know you don’t want to be like that.” He saw many of his friends die by violence. “I believe if I stayed in New Jersey, I would have dropped out of college,” he said. “It’s a big accomplishment to come out of that city and be successful.”

With his mother’s encouragement, he applied to Fisher College and was accepted – but nearly declined because he could not secure a loan for tuition and living expenses. Though he later learned that his grandmother offered her house as collateral, his parents had no financial credit, he said, and could not co-sign a loan for Mendoza.

“It was hard to have people sign for me,” he said. Eventually, the mother of a high school friend who also attends Fisher agreed to co-sign Mendoza’s loan. “That’s how I got here. It was stressful. My friend’s family had it easier than we did, but they still struggled.”

Now that Mendoza is at Fisher, he takes nothing for granted. “I take every class seriously,” he said. “I try to get as involved as I can.” He lives on campus, continues to play baseball, and plans to graduate in four years with a bachelor’s degree in hospitality management. “I want to have a career I could enjoy,” he said.

While at Fisher, Mendoza’s life of academic study and new friends has been charmed. He won a 2006 PT Cruiser in a campus raffle this fall. “I think it was a blessing. The first thing I did was call my mother and she called everyone in the Dominican Republic,” he said. Of the 300 tickets sold, Mendoza purchased only one. As he talked about the process of elimination for the ticket holders – instead of drawing the winner, tickets drawn were eliminated each day until only Mendoza’s ticket remained – a wide smile crept across his face. “When they said the second place winner and I wasn’t it, it was crazy.”

However, Mendoza never touched the car. He traded it in for $10,000, giving $2,000 to Fisher’s athletic department and the remainder to his family.

Roxbury native Dorcella Eddith, 44, is also a freshman at Fisher College. “In our family, our parents didn’t save for college. If you had a career you wanted to get into, you had to find your own way,” she said.

She was “fed up” with school by her high school graduation and opted instead to go into childcare. “When I was in high school, I knew I wanted to take care of children,” she said. A single parent of two teenagers, Eddith ran a childcare center in her home for several years but, until her mid-forties, never went back to school.

Now, she continues to work a 40-hour week at Horizons for Homeless Children in Jamaica Plain while studying for her associate’s degree in early childhood education. She has a goal: Meet the new state laws that require teachers to have an associate’s degree by June 2007 and a bachelor’s degree by June 2010. Fisher’s recent introduction of a bachelor’s degree in Human Services means that Eddith will not have to transfer to a different school for the education she needs.

Eddith prefers to learn through classes online or “blended” classes, which mix online and classroom instruction. She enrolled last semester in the online version of Introduction to Early Childhood Education, along with her 19-year-old daughter, Thais, who took the class on campus. Both Eddith and Thais, a full-time student at Fisher, attend school on a full scholarship. “We’re talking about the same thing in class, but we’re not necessarily on the same page,” Eddith said.

Thais considered waiting a year after high school graduation before matriculating, Eddith said, but “I told her she needs to go to school and get her degree first. We figured it’s better to start now.”


Like Eddith, Lisa Francis, 39, of Roslindale, does her homework every night alongside her children, Michael, 16, and Jazmyn, 12. For Francis, a single parent, life is a balancing act between work, study, and instilling in her children the values of perseverance and compassion.

“College was seen as a prestigious thing in my family,” she said. “When I was graduating from high school, I was very overwhelmed by the idea of it.” She decided to defer applying to college for a year, which turned into nearly two decades. “Needless to say, my family was disappointed,” she said.

As a longtime employee in the healthcare sector, Francis enrolled at Fisher in 2000 and earned a medical coding certificate five years later. She hopes to graduate in June with a bachelor’s degree in health care management, with the goal of going into practice or case management.

She approaches schoolwork and her family with the same quiet assertiveness she brings to her job at Massachusetts General Hospital. Although she works between 40 and 50 hours a week, she devotes 20 more to studying. She prefers to learn through classroom interaction rather than online classes. “Online you have to be way more disciplined, and I have too many distractions,” she said.

Francis’ day begins at five every morning to help Michael and Jazmyn get ready for school. She then leaves for her job in the financial access unit of the hospital’s admitting department, coming in at seven for an “hour of peace” before the workday starts. She calls her department the “silent heart beat” of the hospital. “Most of our patients don’t know we exist,” she said. “It’s the best mix of administration and clinical practice without having patient contact.”

Despite the demands of her job, Francis volunteers at Jazmyn’s school and is a regular on Fisher’s Dean’s List. Her hard work paid off this year when she was honored with the 2007 MGH Black Achiever’s Award sponsored by the YMCA. “It’s nice to be recognized by my workplace because I had no idea anyone was paying attention,” she said. “When I read my boss’ recommendation, I was in tears.”

Instead of lamenting her decision to postpone college after high school, Francis prefers to be seen as a “living example” of determination to her children, who seem to have embraced her attitude. Jazmyn wants to be a fashion designer and is already searching the Internet for college programs. Michael is interested in mechanical engineering and psychology. “They’re kind of my catapult. They keep me going,” she said.

She does not look at her time since high school graduation as lost but as a “whirlwind excursion.” “I tell myself, ‘You’re not behind schedule. Maybe this is just your time,’” she said. “There’s no stopping me now.”

CAPTION: State Senator Dianne Wilkerson and Massachusetts Convention Center Authority Executive Director James Rooney were satisfied that the extensive data was sound enough to back up the Hynes/Boston Common Garage Commission’s recommendation that the Hynes and the Boston Common Garage should remain in state hands.







The Hynes Convention Center should remain a state property, and the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority should continue its good work in managing it. Furthermore, the MCCA should enhance the Hynes, which could become an even more valuable facility.

Those were the conclusions in a long-awaited report made public on Tuesday by state Senator Dianne Wilkerson, co-chair of the Hynes/Common Garage Commission.

“The hard data is overwhelming,” said commission member Patrick Moscaritolo, president and chief executive of the Greater Boston Convention & Visitors Bureau. “The more we draw that out in the report, the easier it will be to support the commission’s recommendation.”

The data was so convincing, said Wilkerson, that members who began the process with many divergent views on the fate of the Hynes came to a consensus by the end.

“The more we learned about the economic role these [entities] played, we got to a consensus,” she said. The other entity that the commission studied was the Boston Common Parking Garage, the $5 million in annual revenue of which goes toward subsidizing the Hynes and the MCCA’s other facilities, which include the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center in South Boston and the MassMutual Center in Springfield.

The report details the economic role of the Hynes, puts to rest arguments for closing it and counters the predictions of doom mounted by officials and pundits that ranged from Governor Romney and gubernatorial candidate Robert Reich to the Boston Phoenix editorial page.

For example, the commission reported that the Hynes generates substantial economic benefits, having produced spending for hotel rooms and restaurant meals in 2006 of $141.2 million. Taxes collected from conventioneers’ spending equaled more than $8.9 million, according to the report. The commission determined that these benefits more than outweigh the cost of the Hynes’s annual subsidy from the state, which averages about $3 million, according to James Rooney, the MCCA’s executive director.

“It’s not the money made within the four walls of this building,” said Moscaritolo. “The money is made outside of the building. It’s an economic ecosystem.”

The commission’s discovery that no other convention center in America operated without a government subsidy and that the Hynes was one of the most successful in generating outside revenues were other findings that contradicted the prevailing opinion that Massachusetts was wasteful in subsidizing the 19-year-old convention facility, which grew out of the former War Memorial Auditorium. “There is virtually no private ownership of stand-alone convention centers in America,” the report’s executive summary says. “Convention centers are typically referred to as economic ‘loss leaders.’ ”

The commission found that the pundits who had predicted that the larger Boston Convention and Exposition Center, which opened in 2004, would kill business at the Hynes were wrong. In fact, since the BCEC opened, the Hynes Convention Center has taken in more revenue than ever before, with 2005 ending with $10.03 million and 2006 bringing in $9.87 million. In fiscal year 2006, it will bring in $9 million in direct tax benefits, a 17 percent increase over fiscal year 2005, according to the MCCA. “They are two different buildings, two different products, and two different sets of clients and customers,” said Moscaritolo.

It has also turned out that meeting planners who book the Hynes would not go to the BCEC if the Hynes were not available, according to Moscaritolo. Instead, Boston would lose that business altogether as the planners sought out a different city with a convention center of the appropriate size and attributes of the Hynes.

The commission recommended that the Boston Common Garage remain in the state’s hands. Wilkerson said the commission heard no hue and cry to expand it, so they did not recommend taking that step at this time.

The commission asked the MCCA to consider enhancements to the Hynes, which might involve retail space on the ground floor or granting air rights above it. However, commission members were loathe to suggest that the Hynes interrupt its operation to make any improvements and they were also mindful of the obstacles to development, not the least of which would be that the Mass Pike lies beside and underneath the facility.

Senator Wilkerson explained that no vote of commission members was taken or needed, due to the strong consensus, with no minority report and no opposition. “We hope this report brings closure as to what to do with the Hynes,” she said.

“It’s a good example of what information and facts will do.”


SIDEBAR

The Hynes Convention Center’s fate has been uncertain on and off since 1997, when the legislature authorized building the new Boston Convention and Exhibition Center in South Boston. It has been even more uncertain, since the legislature appointed a commission to find out if the Hynes should be closed or sold.

But the Hynes Convention Center/Boston Common Garage Commisson’s report detailing the facility’s significant contribution to the local economy effectively ends the discussion, said James E. Rooney, executive director of the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority, which is responsible for the Hynes and the garage.

“There are certain programs we’ve been hesitant to move forward on for the past five years,” he said.

Rooney said he knows of only one event the Hynes lost because of its questionable fate, although there may have been some meeting planners he wouldn’t have known about who shied away from investigating it as a venue.

But Rooney is pleased with the results of the long process. “The good side is that we have two years of data showing its strength,” he said. He also has been pleased that team he beefed up to market the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, which has been open for about two and a half years, has now had time to become more sophisticated about competing in the meetings marketplace with both the larger and smaller convention centers.

“The Hynes sells itself,” he said, pointing out that 3,000 hotel rooms are attached indoors to the Boylston Street facility. “With two malls, good restaurants and Newbury Street, there’s no better facility in America.

Happy Holidays

The Commonwealth Avenue Mall trees are wrapped in holiday lights. So are the cranes at the Mandarin Oriental. Doorways, Newbury Street shop windows, the greenery hanging in balls from the Boylston Street light poles — it seems as if everything is aglow.

It grows dark by 4 p.m. But Christmas trees shine out from windows. A menorah glows gently in front of the State House. Commercialism is in high gear. Party invitations swirl. People exchange presents. Pageants are presented. Songs are sung. Roast beef, turkey, fish and latkes are prepared. Santas listen patiently to children. Families get together. People serve meals and give presents to the elderly, the indigent, and the lonely. Tots get toys distributed by the Marines. Midnight services are observed.

What a good time can be had, even though it is dark and — usually, but not this year — cold.

This is the season of peace and good will — a sentiment that appears to be shared by all cultures, no matter whether they celebrate Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, Boxing Day, the New Year or on December 31, Eid al-Adha, the Muslim feast commemorating the end of the pilgrimage to Mecca and of Ibraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son, which is also a Christian story.

Then why is there so much complaining? Sometimes it is about taking the Christ out of Christmas. Sometimes it is annoyance because a person has greeted someone with the generic Happy Holidays, or, heaven forbid, a Merry Christmas, not realizing they are not Christian. Why are there so many rules about what can’t be on public property? Why do we rule out crčches or menorahs or whatever? Instead of saying no, why can’t we say yes to every celebration?

We have heard, but we can’t verify, that the meanness began last year with one of the radio talk show pontificators. He complained that politically correct standards were forcing everyone to be generic during the holiday season. His complaints apparently got the dander up in some Christians who were just aching for something to complain about — a stance that doesn’t seem particularly Christian to us.

In any case, by last year, saying Merry Christmas to someone once in awhile had a tone of aggression in it that wasn’t all that becoming.

We propose we take another tack. Let’s all celebrate everything. It is so much fun to bring a live tree into the house and decorate it. It is peaceful to light candles and be grateful for oil that lasted for eight days. All of these holidays involve food, fun, friends and family. They are the best.

It is a season of peace and miracles. What a miracle it would be that in this month of so many holidays, we would glorify the fun we have in all our cultures during this month and appreciate the fact that we usually live together in harmony no matter what God we worship or don’t worship or what stories we believe in.

Happy all holidays.