November 2020 - Neighborhood View

Malden Neighbors Are Helping Neighbors to Get Through the Pandemic

November 30, 2020 Martha Bezzat 1

By Martha Bezzat Since launching in the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in March, Malden Neighbors Helping Neighbors (MNHN) continues to make a profound impact on Malden households by connecting those in need with resources. Formed by Malden resident Meera Krishnan — inspired by her own sister’s Newton Facebook group — her husband, AJ Kumar, and James Meickle, leader of a neighborhood mutual aid group, MNHN has blossomed from a tight knit group of “lead organizers” who interface with local and state agencies and officials to navigate larger issues. It now includes a network of “neighborhood point persons” who daily process requests through the organization’s website and Facebook page. To date, the all-volunteer organization has helped more than 600 households with such tasks as food delivery, housing/financial assistance (through referrals to ABCD, Housing Families, CityLife, and others), and prescription pick-up. Volunteers have also managed yardwork, furniture moves, and assisting with baby equipment. Lead organizers and neighborhood point people, working from their computers, coordinate delivery volunteers (delivering weekly to now 80 households), check-in-callers, generous donors, […]

Malden Memory Makers: Birukti Tsige on culture, family and community

November 27, 2020 Marielle Gutierrez 0

In May 2020, Malden Reads planned to host the Malden Mass. Memories Road Show (MMRS), a statewide, event-based participatory archiving program that documents people, places, and events in Massachusetts history through family photographs and stories, which are stored in a digital archive at openarchives.umb.edu. The program is produced by University Archives and Special Collections in the Joseph P. Healey Library at UMass Boston in collaboration with local communities. Due to the pandemic, the in-person event could not be held and so this summer the MMRS team invited anyone with a connection to Malden to contribute photographs and stories online as part of the Malden Mass. Memories Stuck-at-Home Show As soon as it is safe to do so, the MMRS will visit Malden to collect more materials at a live, in-person event. Through the month of December, you can also take part in the online version and submit your own photos via this link. To mark this effort, Marielle A. Gutierrez, a student at UMass Boston (currently attending remotely from California) and interning with the Mass. Memories Road Show program, has written a series of […]

Malden Reads Selects Trevor Noah’s “Born a Crime” for 11th Year Book

November 24, 2020 NeighborhoodView 1

By Natasha Eslami In Born a Crime, Trevor Noah, the popular comedian and host of the cable TV show “The Daily Show,” recounts his childhood growing up in South Africa, the son of a white father and a Black mother. At the time, such a union was punishable by five years in prison in apartheid South Africa, so Noah’s very existence was “crime.” Noah tells his story, which ranges from the humorous to the traumatic, with his cutting wit and incisive perspective. At times both poignant and outrageous, Noah deals with the intersection of his life and the history of a country reckoning with deep-seated racism and finds a parallel here to the United States. His memoir does not shy away from exposing deeply ingrained racism, sexism, violence, economic inequity, and domestic violence. And yet, his personal story reminds us that even in the deepest tragedy and among the most menacing of fears, there is hope and strength within ourselves and those around us to set us on a better path. The Malden Reads team wanted to select a book that would […]

Teaching through the lens of love: A conversation with Jennifer Hedrington, MA Teacher of the Year

November 20, 2020 NeighborhoodView 1

By Antonia Sheel As an educator and mother to young children, I had the opportunity to chat with the newly appointed Massachusetts Teacher of the Year (2021), Jennifer Hedrington a seventh-grade math teacher at Ferryway School in Malden, and her former student, Taylor Neal, a sophomore at Point University. The experience was both refreshing and inspiring. Our Zoom conversation touched on everything from what brought Hedrington into the field of education to how Hedrington’s teaching impacted Taylor, who has kept in touch with her years after she first sat in her 7th grade math class. This interview has been edited for space and clarity. Antonia: I want to say first and foremost congratulations! How do you feel? Jen: I’m overwhelmed and humbled. I’m very private. You know I went from having 100 people on my Facebook to 300 or 400. I’m like, oh my gosh this is crazy. I have to remind myself that this is not about me. This is about them. God has blessed me for one year to be a voice to speak up for the kids. […]