While summer is synonymous with TV re-runs and midnight burritos for many high school students, 14 girls from around the U.S. gathered in Boston this past week to spend part of their vacation in service.
“Service in the City” is a program for rising sophomores that provides community service opportunities around the city, and teaches that true citizenship starts in everyday life among family and friends. When asked for the themes they thought inspired Service in the City, the participants volunteered love, friendship, perseverance, service, dignity an respect. As one explained, “Service is not only work, but also the way you interact with the people you are working for.”
Much of their day was filled with volunteering at different charitable organizations: playing with children at the Salvation Army day care; performing a talent show at Vernon Hall, a nursing home in Cambridge; and compiling clothing packages at Cradles to Crayons, an organization in North Quincy dedicated to providing children with the necessary items they need to flourish. After spending a full day around Boston, the high school girls return to the Back Bay for workshops on different topics, such as human dignity, moral personality, identity and freedom.
Service in the City is sponsored by Bayridge Residence, a student residence for young women in the Back Bay. Two residents, Emily Austin, doctoral student at Boston University, and Helen Keefe, an undergraduate at Harvard, organized and led this year’s program.
“The goal is that these girls go back home with a greater sense of love and responsibility for those around them, manifested in little deeds of service,” said Austin, director of Service in the City. “I know we’re succeeding when one girl tells me that after her experience washing dishes at Rosie’s Place, a resource center for homeless women in Roxbury, she wants to work on not complaining at home when it’s her turn to do the dishes.”
For more information about Service in the City, visit www.serviceinthecity.cc.

On Tuesday, July 28, At-Large City Councilor John R. Connolly joined more than 60 people from the Back Bay, Bay Village, Beacon Hill, Dorchester, the Fenway, Mission Hill and the South End at the Copley Branch of Boston Public Library for the third City Council hearing of the Special Committee on a Livable Boston.
Connolly, who chairs the committee and is a first-term city councilor, divided residents into six discussion groups, where facilitators fostered discussion about the definition of livability in Boston and residents’ major concerns. A brainstorming session for solutions followed.
The hearing reconvened to hear public testimony from a number of people. Many residents mentioned public safety and clean streets as their top concerns, while others discussed the desire for improvement in public schools.
Connolly said he has already begun work on one resident’s idea and is looking forward to more input from residents.
The mission of the committee is to examine the impact of the recession on Boston residents, to discuss the challenges that people face in making the city their home for a lifetime and to find new ways to make Boston more livable.
Speaking to the mission of the committee, Connolly said, “We’re looking at the reasons people either stay or leave Boston. We’re looking at why so many people struggle with staying in a city they want to make home. We’ve already begun to work on some ideas that residents have had.”
Connolly then discussed the adverse effects of residents leaving the city.
“The city’s future hinges on people choosing to live here for the long term,” Connolly. “When someone leaves Boston for whatever reason, we lose a potential Little League coach, civic leader, or neighbor who starts the crime watch. We lose the people who are the heart of our neighborhoods.”
The two previous hearings were held in Jamaica Plain and Dorchester.

At a time when most camps are winding down for the season, Hill House is offering preschool and elementary schoolchildren a last chance for summer fun, with programming that continues through the end of August.
“It’s a good way to keep kids in the neighborhood active and continue their summer,” said Laurie Backall, development and external relations manager of Hill House.
Hill House day camp for 5- to-10-year-olds runs weekdays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., while a “kiddie camp” for ages 3 to 5 runs from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. (Additional sports programming for older children is also available after summer camp on weekdays, from 4 to 5:30 p.m.). The camp serves about 50 children at the day camp and 25 more at the kiddie camp during a typical week.
At the day camp, activities, such as field trips, art classes, guest speakers and, for the first time this year, cooking classes, are based on a different theme each week.
Upcoming topics include: “Let’s Go Green” beginning the week of Monday, August 10, with a trip to the Boston Nature Center in Mattapan and make-your own junk art for kids; Mad Science Week, starting the week of August 17, with a trip to the Museum of Science and a group science fair; and Arts, Camera, Action Week, starting August 24, with a trip to the Museum of Fine Arts and photography for campers.
Every Wednesday, for Wednesday Dress Up Day, campers and counselors are also encouraged to dress in costume based on that week’s theme.
The final week of camp beginning August 31 is an abbreviated session, ending Thursday, September 3, and features a different field trip each day. Visits are planned to Canobie Lake Park in Salem, NH, and Castle Island in South Boston, among other local attractions.
Dani Urenico, director of the day camp and a year-round art teacher at Hill House, believes the weekly themes set Hill House summer programming apart from other area camps.
“We’re a different kind of camp,” Urenico said. “The theme is the base point, with enrichment programming built around it.”
As the mother of 8-year-old Alex Garcia, who is now in his third year of camp, Urenico said the summer program allows him to meet children from neighborhoods throughout Boston.
“What I love most about Hill House is the diversity,” Urenico said. “Kids from all over the city come to camp, and their parents share their ideas, too.”
Meanwhile, kiddie camp is an introduction to summer camp for young children, with most activities taking place outdoors at Teddy Ebersol’s Red Sox Fields on the Charles River Esplanade.
Under the guidance of Director Tere Carmona, kiddie camp offerings include swimming, arts and craft, nature walks and songs.
And like the day camp, kiddie camp has weekly themes, including Fairy Tales (the week of August 10), Wild, Wild West, (the week of August 17) and Great Big World (the week of August 24), which explores international cultures.
So while the end of summer might be in sight, kids can still look forward to some fun before September, thanks to Hill House.
“A couple of weeks of camp really sends kids back to school with a bang,” Backall said.
Hill House is still accepting children to its day and kiddie camps for weekly sessions. To learn more about Hill House and its summer programming, visit www.hillhouseboston.org.

Those of us who have come to know Mayor Menino understand this about him.
He is unequivocally against the ages-old social divisions that have existed in this nation for quite some time.
He is not one to accept a division between young and old, women and men, or rich and poor.
Neither does he accept the nominal racial divisions that have plagued the nation, and which continue to weigh on the American conscience.
He doesn’t see by color. He doesn’t measure men and women by race. He wants to have a city that allows all people to be who they are, and for the police to treat everyone as an individual instead of by other subjective methods.
We know this about the mayor because, over time, we have come to know him.
At the luncheon table which we have shared with him on many occasions, the mayor is the picture of proper comportment.
There are no rude jokes allowed at the table. No racial jokes. No ethnic jokes or the more typical ethnic stereotyping that so many Bostonians love to indulge in.
The mayor will have no part in such humor.
And it goes a bit further with him when we are in his presence.
He is made to feel uneasy about even the most harmless and frivolous obscene language shared as banter among those at the table who know one another so well.
Bottom line, the mayor is a straight guy and a strong advocate when it comes to issues that affect the men and women of this city.
This is why a Boston police officer who sent a racially charged e-mail last week was immediately removed from his position by the police commissioner and will likely lose his job.
It is a certainty the mayor spoke with the police commissioner about the incident and suggested that he deal with the offending officer in the harshest manner. It is a certainty the mayor was disgusted by such behavior and felt the disgust to his core, because, frankly, this is the way he is.
Because he is this way, the city he leads to a larger degree than we might believe, takes his lead.
The mayor sets the example. In fact, the mayor is the example.
He may not be a Demosthenes, but in modern Boston, he is the conscience of a city dedicated to protecting the rights of blacks, whites, Hispanics, gays, lesbians, transgenders and everyone else of race and ethnicity living here.
Racial profiling may exist here, but such behavior is not condoned and will be met harshly by the leaders of this city.