Meeting Marty Walsh & Awesome day at Tenean!

Hey everyone, it's Mauricio again and I'm back with more from this summer. This time it'll be all about how I met the mayor and how fun it was at Tenean Beach day! It was a cloudy Saturday morning and I had to attend Tenean beach day with Kristen and Jahari! When I got there I was very surprised it was a great event. There were many games and activities. They had a mini treadmill, bouncy houses, soccer, basketbal, football , and even a gaming truck. We had fish printing going and Nora was telling pirate stories and teaching the kids pirate skills.

The best part of the day was getting to meet Mayor Marty Walsh. I have met Menino before so this wasn't anything new, but its a new Mayor and hes a great guy. Hes done a lot for Dorchester and the city of Boston. From helping clean the beaches and getting more parks in the city. I'm glad we have a good man like him in Office. Also there was free food so I was even more happy. -Mauricio

Weekly Recap

Hi all,

This has been a wonderful week. We've been getting close to 200 kids almost everyday, and the teams we've had have been working great together. Today, we had a huge group of kids from a local JCC. There were fifty kids there, and all of them wanted to fish! It took an hour for all of them to get a turn, but everyone who wanted to fish got a chance. The kids who didn't fish looked at the crabs. I loved seeing all the excitement and enthusiasm from them. Their excitement made me excited.

Today, I also went to the Tenean Beach Festival. There were so many people there! We had a touch tank with a lobster, too. The coolest part was that we got to take a picture with Mayor Walsh. We didn't think he would hold the lobster, but to our surprise, when he came over, he said, "So, can I hold the lobster, or what?" and then proceeded to show it to a group of kids that were standing around the touch tank. Even after two months of touch tanks, I still love seeing people get excited about Boston Harbor wildlife.

On a more serious note, this event also made me see the seriousness of our mission. I had to walk down to the water at Tenean beach to get water for the lobster. I couldn't believe it. We couldn't get enough clean water to properly fill our touch tank. It was brackish and opaque. Plus, we had to walk through mud, which wouldn't have been so bad if it wasn't jet black beneath the surface. We need to help this beach.

Overall, it's been a great week.

Mike