SC Do-Gooders, Key Players, and Game Changers

Best Real Estate Agent

Best Real Estate Agency

Current Listings

111 Spring Street #2, Medford

72 Lexington Avenue #2, Somerville

24 Belmont Street #24, Somerville

This bright, pet-friendly, 2-level condo offers lovely wood details, an updated kitchen, large shared yard/ patio, garage parking, and exclusive loft space in the garage. The first level has a contemporary open plan living/dining area, 1 bedroom, office/nursery, and full bath. The top floor has an open plan, built in bookcases, large walk-in closet, and a half bath. Walk to Wegman’s.

Across from the Davis Square bike path, this secondfloor, 2-bedroom, 1-bathroom condo is about equidistant to Davis and Porter Squares. In-unit washer/dryer, 2 porches, basement storage.

Spacious, 3-level townhouse with high ceilings, central air, private driveway, deck, and yard. On first level, open living/dining rooms separated by gas fireplace; kitchen with large dining area and sliders to deck; half bath; and door to large, unfinished basement. Two sizable bedrooms, full bath, and separate laundry room on second floor. Master bedroom with full bath en suite and Boston views occupies entire top floor.

42 Clyde Street #2, Somerville

42-44 Gordon Street, Somerville

17 Orchard Street, Medford

Sleek, contemporary townhouse offers architectural finishes and the amenities of newer (2009) construction with 3 bedrooms, 3.5 baths, central air, 2 side-by-side parking, fenced yard, and enviable 13’x 22’ private roof deck.

Well-maintained, classic West Somerville two-family that has been occupied and cherished by the same family for decades. First unit has 2 bedrooms and 1 bath; upper unit has the same layout with an extra study or small bedroom. Wide driveway and landscaped yard.

$479,000

$1,198,000

$649,000

$949,000

$1,100,000

$879,000

Charming two-family within 1.5 mile of Davis and Medford Squares with garage and driveway. First floor unit has 1 bedroom, 1 bath; upper unit has 4 bedrooms, 2 baths on 2 levels. Lovely back yard and porches.

Commercial 62 Bow Street Unit #60-b, Somerville

366 Somerville Avenue, Somerville

This highly visible, centrally located, street-level commercial condo is in the heart of Union Square with residential condos above it. Open room with exposed brick, picture windows onto the street, half bathroom, and separate area. Currently used by the owners as a small music lesson/performance space, previously used as a drop-off (no plant onsite) dry cleaner, it could be used for other retail or office purposes. (Buyers should review Somerville zoning code and condominium documents for any restrictions on use) Near restaurants, grocery stores, businesses, offices, residential neighborhoods, universities.

Quick access to Boston and Cambridge by public transit, car, bike, or foot. On several bus lines, including the CT2, 85, 86, 87, 88, and 91. Steps from long-awaited Union Square Green Line Extension subway stop (now slated to open 2021). Close to several highways, including Routes 93, 38, 28, 90, 16, and 2. Excellent opportunity at an exciting time.

Class A office space in prime Union Sq. location with 2 dedicated parking spaces in the parking lot next to the building. The 3,918 sq.ft. space is fully built out, consisting of most of the first (above ground) floor of an elevator building, including 3 large private offices, kitchenette/breakroom, storage room, and 2 bathrooms. Shared use of front reception area with bathroom and partial use of 33’x21’ conference room. Space is built out as offices; if tenant wants additional buildout, it can be done at tenant’s expense. Asking $35 per sq.ft. triple net. Initial lease term of 5 years with annual rent escalation of 2%. Option to renew for 3-year term. Available immediately. MBTA bus stop in Union Square include the CT2 (to Kendall, Ruggles, Sullivan); 85 (Kendall, MIT, Lechmere); 87 (Arlington Center); 91 (Sullivan, Inman, & Central Square); and 90 (Davis Square, Assembly Row, Wellington Station).

Future Green Line stop nearby.

for sale at $299,000 or for lease at $2,800/month

$35 nnn

Coming Soon

Thalia Tringo

President, Realtor ® 617.513.1967 cell/text Thalia@ThaliaTringoRealEstate.com

Winchester $tbd –

3-bedroom, 2-bath second floor condo, built in 2007. Kitchen has stainless steel appliances and cherry cabinets. Many windows offering lots of light, generous size rooms, private outdoor space, and 2 parking spots.

28 Newberne St. Unit 6, Somerville Stunning Davis Square townhouse-style unit – (Built 2011) with 3 bedrooms, 2 1/2

baths. Large deck facing the bike path, gas fireplace, central air, 2 garage parking spaces, private garden plot.

Free Classes: Plan now for the Fall

Niké Damaskos

Residential Sales and Commercial Sales and Leasing 617.875.5276 Nike@ThaliaTringoRealEstate.com

Jennifer Rose

Residential Sales Specialist, Realtor ® 617.943.9581 cell/text Jennifer@ThaliaTringoRealEstate.com

First Time Home Buyers:

an overview of the buying process Wednesday, September 12TH

6:30 – 7:45 pm

If you’re considering buying your first home and want to understand what’s in store, this is a quick and helpful overview. Led by our agents and a loan officer from a local bank, it includes a 45-min presentation and 1/2 hour Q&A session. Handouts and refreshments provided.

Lynn C. Graham

Residential Sales Specialist, Realtor ® 617.216.5244 cell/text Lynn@ThaliaTringoRealEstate.com

How to Buy and Sell at the Same Time: for homeowners contemplating a move

Tuesday, August 21ST OR Tuesday, September 18TH 6:30 – 7:45 pm If trying to figure out the logistics of selling your home and buying a new one makes your head spin, this workshop will help make the process & your choices understandable. This workshop, led by our agents and a loan officer from a local bank, includes a 45-min presentation and 1/2 hour Q&A session. Handouts and refreshments provided.

Eco-Friendly/Green Homes Tuesday, September 25TH

Mitigating Water Issues on Your Property

Adaria Brooks

Executive Assistant to the President, Realtor ® 617.308.0064 cell/text Adaria@ThaliaTringoRealEstate.com

6:30 – 7:45 pm

Every year, homeowners struggle with the consequences of water infiltration through foundation, roof, siding, flashing, or elsewhere. Repairing the damage can be costly and time-consuming and can result in more serious issues, including mold. Join us to learn ways to diagnosis and prevent water issues before they occur, whether from street flooding, ice dams, poor drainage, roof damage, and other causes. Lead by our team and a local home inspector.

How Individuals Can Buy Property Together as a Group: a primer for non-traditional homebuyers September Date TBA

Residential Sales Specialist, Realtor ® 617.895.6267 cell/text Brendon@ThaliaTringoRealEstate.com

6:30 – 8:00 pm

If you’re dreaming of a home that’s the ultimate in energy efficiency, join us for a presentation about passive homes. We’ll discuss the lingo associated with this technology, show various examples of homes that use the passive home design/standards, and the various programs currently available to retrofit your home. Presented by a local Architect/Designer, Tagore Hernandez with Group Design Build. One hour presentation and 20 minutes Q&A. Handouts and refreshments provided.

September Date TBA

Brendon Edwards

6:30 – 8:30 pm

When two or more people, whether or not they are related, buy property together, what are their options for taking title? How do you determine each one’s financial contributions, percentage legal interest in the property, and expense allocation? What kind of arrangements can be made in the event one or more parties want to move on but others want to keep the property? What type of financing is available? We will address these and other questions, followed by a Q&A session. Lead by our team and a local real estate attorney.

If you are a first time homebuyer, please attend the First Time Home Buyers Workshop (March 20th) or make an appointment with one of our agents so you’ll have your prerequisites for this class.

To reserve space in any class, please email Adaria@ThaliaTringoRealEstate.com.

Admission is free, but we appreciate donations of canned goods for the Somerville Homeless Coalition.

About our company...

We are dedicated to representing our buyer and seller clients with integrity and professionalism. We are also commi ed to giving back to our community. Our agents donate $250 to a non-profit in honor of each transaction and Thalia Tringo & Associates Real Estate Inc. also gives $250 to a pre-selected group of local charities for each transaction.

Visit our office, 128 Willow Avenue, on the bike path in Davis Square, Somerville.

JULY 9 - SEPTEMBER 9, 2018 ::: VOLUME 33 ::: SCOUTCAMBRIDGE.COM

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contents 6 // EDITOR’S NOTE 8 // WINNERS & LOSERS Crime is down but ticks are up.

10 // WHAT’S NEW? We’ve got sister restaurants, perfectly sculpted gelato, and a lot of angry bicyclists.

39 // SCOUT’S HONORED VOTING Get your ballot in—voting ends July 22!

42 // CALENDAR 46 // PHOTO CONTESTS

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16

32

DO-GOODERS, KEY PLAYERS, & GAME CHANGERS

Cambridge is filled with people who are changing the world, whether through kindness, innovation, art, music, or speaking out. Here you can read their stories and learn about how they’re making your city a better, more dynamic place to live.

Photos, from left: Sumbul Siddiqui by Emily Falcigno, Sofia Bernstein by Derek Kouyoumjian, Christopher Hope by Sasha Pedro, Jayms Battaglia by Derek Kouyoumjian.

On the cover: Daisy Chiu and Charles T. James. Photo by Chris McIntosh.

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AT DECORDOVA WHERE THE LIGHTS IN MY HEART GO JULY 5–OCTOBER 28, 2018 deCordova | Sculpture Park and Museum 51 Sandy Pond, Lincoln, MA 01773 decordova.org

EDITOR’S NOTE

C

ambridge is filled with people who are changing the world, whether through kindness, innovation, art, music, or speaking out.

As we worked to put this edition together, those people seemed to come out of the woodworks. Everywhere I turned, there were more people and organizations that I wanted to include in the pages of this issue.

This theme, I think, gets at the heart of what Scout hopes to do in Cambridge: to highlight the people who make this city what it is, and to show how they’re impacting their neighborhood, their city, and maybe even the world.

We had the pleasure of meeting some of those people for this issue, and we can’t wait to introduce you to them.

Photo by Megan Souza.

There are the members of the Black Student Union at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, who forced the school to face the racism within its walls and persevered through the backlash (p.34).

There are the founders of CrimsonBikes, who are making biking more accessible— in every sense of the word (p.20).

There’s a mother-daughter duo who is fighting to make sure that local women get their rightful place in history (p.18).

There’s Anne Plaisance, an immigrant artist who was shocked to see the sizable homeless population in the city and now creates art programming for women who have experienced domestic violence (p.23). And there are so many others.

We hope you enjoy this chance to meet some of your neighbors.

Reena Karasin Reena Karasin, Editor-in-Chief rkarasin@scoutmagazines.com

PUBLISHER Holli Banks Allien | hbanks@scoutmagazines.com EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Reena Karasin | rkarasin@scoutmagazines.com ART DIRECTOR Nicolle Renick | design@scoutmagazines.com renickdesign.com PHOTOGRAPHY DIRECTOR Adrianne Mathiowetz | photo@scoutmagazines.com adriannemathiowetz.com CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Jerry Allien | jallien@scoutmagazines.com STAFF WRITER AND SOCIAL MEDIA COORDINATOR Tim Gagnon | tgagnon@scoutmagazines.com CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Adam Sennott, Eddie Samuels, Emily Frost, Lee Gjertsen Malone CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS Chris McIntosh, Derek Kouyoumjian, Emily Falcigno, Irina M. / IM Creative Photography, Lee Gjertsen Malone, Randi Freundlich, Sasha Pedro COPY EDITOR Joe Palandrani MARKETING INTERN Kyra Guzzo BANKS PUBLICATIONS 519 Somerville Ave, #314, Somerville, MA 02143 FIND US ONLINE scoutcambridge.com scoutcambridge

scoutcambridge @scoutmags

Office Phone: 617-996-2283 Advertising inquiries? Please contact hbanks@scoutmagazines.com.

GET A COPY Scout Cambridge is available for free at more than 250 drop spots throughout the city (and just beyond its borders). Additionally, thousands of Cambridge homes receive a copy in their mailbox each edition, hitting every neighborhood in the city throughout the year ... sometimes twice! You can find sign up for home delivery by visiting scoutcambridge.com/shop.

ArtBeat by Day: 11-6 Throughout Davis Square 2 stages of music with over 15 bands, a parade, a dance showcase, 80 craft vendors, food, kids activities, Esh Circus Arts and much more flipped out content.

ArtBeat by Night: 6-10 7 Hills Park (behind Som. Theatre) Salsa instruction, Jesus Pagan y su Orquestra, the Perceptionists, and Hayley Thompson-King Full schedule: www.somervilleartscouncil.org Untitled-1.indd 1

6/28/18 12:18 PM

Vote Now!

FILL OUT THE BALLOT ON PAGE 39 OR MAKE YOUR PICKS AT SCOUTCAMBRIDGE.COM/VOTE

ENTER & WIN! SUMMER PHOTO CONTEST

Sponsored by Irving House and Harding House

Wherever your travels take you this summer, be sure to take your Scout along! Take a photo with Scout on your vacation and at the end of the summer we’ll highlight the farthest trip, the most creative photo, and the funniest submission.

HOW IT WORKS: 1. Take a picture with a copy of Scout on your summer vacation.

2. Post the picture on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter and be sure to tag us (or you can email the photo to scout@scoutmagazines.com).

3. We’ll pick three winners to be printed in our Scout’s Honored issue (out in September) and to win a $50 prize plus a night at the Harding House or Irving House! scoutcambridge.com | Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers

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W&L

WINNERS

LOSERS

THE CHARLES RIVER In a gathering that would warm Captain Planet’s environmentaljustice-loving heart, the Charles River Conservancy Earth Day Cleanup saw 682 volunteers for its 19th annual event—a record high, the advocacy group says. With volunteers from local companies like Amgen and CDM Smith, the CRC largely focused on picking up trash along the river and collecting sticks and brush from spots like Paul Revere Park and Magazine Beach Park. Considering that 8 million metric tons of plastic winds up in the ocean each year, according to the official Earth Day website, it’s heartening to know there’s a little less waste in our own waterways thanks to local volunteers.

QUESTIONABLE COMPOSTING Cambridge’s expanded curbside composting program is expected to reduce city trash by 2,000 tons, but WGBH found that the methods the city’s using are … well, technically not composting.

Basically, the food waste is mixed with sewage, but city officials claim that any contamination in the fertilizer they make from the process is “well below any limits in safety regulations.” The process is called anaerobic digestion and, according to Boston University environmental health professor Laura Orlando, it’s flat out “not composting.”

AKAMAI After starting off the year by laying off 400 employees, Cambridge-based cloud security/ tech company Akamai announced plans to hire “several hundred” people this year, according to Bloomberg.

Akamai’s CEO told Bloomberg that the company saw a 36 percent “revenue growth really led by our security solutions,” whereas Boston Business Journal reports that the layoffs earlier in the year “mostly hit employees in Akamai’s Media Division.”

SAFER NEIGHBORHOODS Cambridge police capped off 2017 by announcing that the city experienced “its lowest crime index total since 1963,” according to the Cambridge Patch, and it looks like the trend is continuing into 2018. In the first four months of 2018, the Patch reports that “serious” crime is down 10 percent, violent crime is down eight percent, and 42 fewer crimes have been reported to the police compared to this point last year.

TICKS (OR, RATHER, US) Ticks are never in the winning column for us—they’re an enemy of summers spent outdoors, they suck your blood while putting you at risk of getting Lyme’s Disease, and, according to a recent CDC report, the amount of diseases transmitted by them and their flea/mosquito buddies have tripled since 2004. But we have an even more justifiable reason to list them as a loser this month: Massachusetts had the third highest number of recorded tick-related diseases in the country, behind New York and Pennsylvania, according to the Somerville Patch. Now you’re going to check yourself every time you come back inside for bloodsuckers, right?

NECCO The nearly-120-year-old candy wafer company with the slogan “an American classic” went through a massive shakeup that ultimately forced it to leave the NECCO name in the dust.

The company filed for bankruptcy early in May, took the NECCO brand to court auction, and sold for $18.8 million to Spangler Candy Co., the Cambridge Patch reported. A week later, Spangler backed out of the deal, according to the Patch, leaving the second-highest bidder, Round Hill Investments, in the wings with a $17.3 million offer. Part of the agreement with Round Hill, which has previously invested in brands like Pabst Blue Ribbon and Hostess, stipulates that the company rebrand itself as “Sweetheart Candy Co.”

Someone rustle your jimmies or tickle your fancy?

Let us know at scoutcambridge.com/contact-us, and we just might crown them a winner or loser.

8 Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers | scoutcambridge.com

NEWS FROM THE NORTH Here’s just some of what you’ll find in the Do-Gooders, Key Players, & Game Changers Issue of our sibling publication, Scout Somerville.

AN ACTIVIST-ESSAYIST-POET TACKLES THE ECONOMY OF INCARCERATION

“MOON EATERS” ZINE CREATES A PLATFORM FOR APIA, FEMME VOICES

LEE ERICA PALMER HELPS PAVE THE WAY FOR SINGLE PARENTS TO RUN FOR OFFICE

Want to help shape what our next issue looks like? We need you to VOTE in our 2018 Scout’s Honored polls! Support your favorite businesses at scoutcambridge.com/vote or by filling out the paper ballot on page 39.

YOUR FUN, NEIGHBORHOOD PUB A few of your neighbors have taken over the space formerly known as On the Hill Tavern. We’ve updated the menu, brushed up the look and welcome you to come by and hang with us.

4 9 9 B R O A D WAY, S O M E R V I L L E

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scoutcambridge.com | Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers

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WHAT’S NEW

FOODIE NEWBIES KENDALL SQUARE

THE DINING CAR

Commonwealth Kitchen at Kendall has leased a stand-alone space for the nextCOMING three years, MOVED SOON Boston Magazine reports, allowing “established caterers a place to test out a scaled-up concept and build up their customer base.” Its first tenant, The Dining Car, is a food truck staple around Boston, known for its focaccia bread “baked right on the truck” and gourmet sandwiches like honey, truffle, and goat cheese with toasted walnuts and a slow-roasted lamb sandwich topped with with mint and a pomegranate vinaigrette. The Dining Car intends to stick around “through the fall,” BoMag reports, and most aspiring restaurants that take the space thereafter will likely stay for four to six months.

UPPERWEST WINE BAR ADDS COFFEE TO THE MENU

KENDALL SQUARE

DUMPLING DAUGHTER AND VESTER

COMING SOON

MOVED

S

isters/legacy restaurateurs Nadia Liu Spellman and Nicole Liu (whose mom is the Sally Ling of the former, eponymous Chinese restaurant in downtown Boston) are opening restaurants right next to each other in the former Study and Ames Street Deli spaces, Eater Boston reports. Nadia Liu Spellman plans on opening a second location of her Dumpling Daughter restaurant, which initially opened in Weston back in 2014 and offers up rice bowls, buns, and the obligatory dumplings inspired by her mother’s restaurant. Nicole Liu, however, is looking to Denmark for inspiration with VESTER. Liu is inspired by “the cafe culture, city aesthetic, and their mindful approach to dining” of Copenhagen for her cafe, which will focus on seasonally minded plates, sturdy sandwiches like the prosciutto di parma, and “a daily splurge special.” With seating for 60 including patio space, Dumpling Daughter aims to open this summer, while VESTER has yet to announce a start date.

HARVARD SQUARE

BREAKTIME CAFE

COMING SOON

Focusing on the employment difficulties facing housing-insecure young adults across the city, two Harvard graduates are currently fundraising to open Breaktime Cafe, a cafe and donut shop that plans to serve up vocational training on the side. Co-creators Tony Shu and Connor Schoen first bonded at the homelessserving nonprofit Y2Y Harvard Square, Eater Boston reports, and plan on rounding up a handful of Harvard-based organizations to help Breaktime focus on “stable employment, vocational training, and career-based education.”

Aside from fundraising, Shu and Schoen have some serious MOVED backing—after winning the 2018 Harvard College Innovation Challenge, Breaktime announced a partnership with Union Square Donuts.

HARVARD SQUARE

AMORINO

Putting frozen treats on waffles, spread atop crepes, and COMING stuffed inside macarons MOVED SOON sounds like distinctly American dessertcrafting behavior, but Amorino appears to be using our penchant for near-overindulgence

10 Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers | scoutcambridge.com

to guide us to the real star of their show: gelato. The Italian-style ice cream at Amorino comes in 25 different flavors, Eater Boston reports, including classics like chocolate, strawberry, and stracciatella (essentially a supercharged chocolate chip ice cream) alongside passionfruit, melon, and rotating seasonal specials.

The sweet shop is now open on a prime corner of JFK Street, staying open most nights until 11 p.m. to quell that undeniable need for sugar you probably just got reading those flavors.

Seemingly every food critic wants to find a “hidden gem” of a restaurant that they can claim the public’s been sleeping on too long, but Eater Boston might have a point with UpperWest Wine Bar. Sure, it’s situated in the “basement of the United American Veterans house by the bike path” in North Cambridge, which practically reads like a location in a Stefon sketch from SNL, but the underrated wine bar is expanding past in-theknow dinner crowds and fancy charcuterie sections to open early as a coffee shop. Upperwest’s new weekend hours are between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m., serving up coffee with biscuits, muffins, and other breakfast/brunch favorites.

VIALÉ INTRODUCES LUNCH MENU

Up until recently, Vialé’s “Italianinspired, locally sourced” dishes aimed to please the dinner crowds milling about Central along with the brunch lovers, but the restaurant officially trotted out a weekday lunch menu after running a successful trial period. Expect grilled pizza, gnocchi, swordfish, and cheesesteak as regular midday appearances. Vialé’s new hours are from 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Photo, top left, by Brian Samuels Photography. Photo, top right, by Bernie Birnbaum.

Photo, bottom right, courtesy of Food Waste Feast.

MEAT AND WASTE-FREE

The greatest satisfaction is understanding our client’s needs to translate their vision into form and functional art.

KENDALL SQUARE

GYPSY PLACE CAFE AND JUICE BAR

Gypsy Place Cafe and Juice Bar slowly began rolling out its vegetarian menuCOMING and testingMOVED SOON more experimental dishes in early June, according to Eater Boston.

An official menu hasn’t been announced, but the cafe/juice spot revealed on Instagram that it’s working with Peaks Coffee Company out of New York and teased a goat cheese, caramel syrup-flavored coffee amid some cozy, tye-dyed digs.

FOOD WASTE FEAST

Former Mei Mei co-owner Margaret Li and her sister Irene’s latest endeavor is Food Waste Feast, a website devoted to recipes utilizing oft-wasted food and

ideas on how to cut down on food waste. The recipe site and blog is organized by categories of foods that regularly go to waste. Got a lot of dairy? Make a savory galette and throw in those softening veggies that have been chilling in your fridge. What about herbs, legumes, or “veggies that are actually fruits?” Yep, they have individual categories for those too.

HARVARD SQUARE

VEGGIE GRILL

COMING SOON

Back in our “Arts & Architecture” issue, we predicted that Bay Area-based coffee chain Blue Bottle’s debut in Harvard Square would be “hella good,” but we didn’t expect the subtle Californication of Cambridge that’s sure to continue with Veggie Grill. The vegan chain is the latest in a West Coast takeover of Harvard Square, and will mark the Santa Monica-based company’s first East Coast location, Boston Restaurant Talk reports.

Although the array of masala bowls, Korean tacos, veggie burgers, and other veggiefriendly treats sound like perfect summer indulgences, you’ll have to wait until fall to catch their Cali wave of vegan goodness.

Architectural Services MOVED

• New construction • Additions & renovations • Sustainable materials & methods

amortondesign.com 617.894.0285 info@aMortonDesign.com scoutcambridge.com | Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers

11

WHAT’S NEW

WELCOME ENTRANCES, UNHAPPY EXITS, AND CHANGING LANES

ARTISTS REMAIN IN EMF BUILDING PAST EVICTION DATE

D

espite being told that they would be evicted on May 31, about 10 artists continued to use their practice spaces in the EMF building into June, according to tenant Jon Glancy. The affordable arts and music incubator has been a haven for musicians since 2006, but owner John DiGiovanni told tenants earlier this year that they would be evicted. Nearly a week into June, Glancy received a letter saying that if the artists didn’t leave the property promptly, they would be subject to a “formal eviction” and that the building owner would “seek money, damages,” and legal fees.

Glancy says it was his understanding that the verbal leases were in six-month or year-long installments. The property managers argue that the verbal leases were month-to-month. The remaining artists argue that their leases are still active, but David Katz, a lawyer who specializes in landlord-tenant litigation, says that verbal leases typically aren’t considered valid. Trinity Property Management, the building’s management company, and Bob Logan, the building’s manager, did not respond to requests for comment.

MICROSOFT GARAGE AIMS TO BE A TECHIE HAVEN FOR THE PUBLIC

Microsoft opened its first public Garage makerspace in Kendall Square in May, aiming to make the space more communitycentric than its six predecessors across the world, according to the Cambridge Chronicle. The Cambridge space is the company’s third Garage in the country, the first on the East Coast, and the biggest facility to date. Boasting a company-wide hackathon and an intensive internship that allows interns to hack cutting-edge technology in teams and develop a customer-researched product over 12 to 16 weeks, the Garage also serves as a testing ground for the company that customers can purchase experimental products and apps through.

AFTER SOME DIFFICULTIES, AMAZON GETS A STOREFRONT For a second there this spring, it looked like online shopping supergiant Amazon wouldn’t be bringing a new storefront where people can pick up their packages. Midway through May, the future Amazon space in Central Square was blocked

from opening over not filing a formula business special permit, the Cambridge Day reports.

Building Commissioner Ranjit Singanayagam explained that certain color schemes and signage in the Amazon store match the criteria of a formula business, which the Institute for Local Self-Reliance describes as a store or restaurant that has “standardized services, décor, methods of operation, and other features that make them virtually identical to businesses elsewhere.”

In mid-June the store opened without much fanfare, complete with Amazon employees and self-help kiosks to assist patrons, the Cambridge Patch reports.

ANT BICYCLE GETS INTO A BIKE RENTING “WAR”

sharing—which essentially means a bike can be activated anywhere using the company’s app. Both Cambridge and Somerville officials have warned Ant to “stay off its streets,” according to Curbed Boston, and the Globe reports that Boston officials have gone as far as to impound the bikes. If the company’s Instagram is any indication, though, Ant’s next move appears be spreading across Massachusetts by setting up in Lynn and at UMass Dartmouth.

PORTER SQUARE PLANS FACE BICYCLISTS’ WRATH The Cambridge Department of Traffic is looking to update traffic signals, put in new signs,

repaint lines, and update traffic islands at Porter Square’s major intersection, according to the Cambridge Chronicle, but a population of commuters are displeased with the updates—or, rather, lack thereof. “I see cars bleed into the bike lanes all the time,” Cambridge Bicycle Safety volunteer Michael Davidson told the Chronicle, voicing one of a number of concerns local bike groups feel the city isn’t addressing with the intersection’s update. The May 8 public meeting and plan announcement came days after a rally in the square where 200 cyclists advocated for protected lanes, among other suggestions for safer biking infrastructure.

It might seem a little overblown to call a dispute over bike-share companies a full-on “border war,” but the Globe’s recent headline about the blowout between Blue Bikes and Ant Bicycle is no joke.

Blue Bikes is a docked bikeshare company co-owned by the municipalities of Cambridge, Somerville, Boston, and Brookline, while Ant Bicycle is a much smaller, Cambridge-based venture into dockless bike-

12 Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers | scoutcambridge.com

Photo, top left, by Evan Sayles. Photo, top right, by Tim Gagnon.

FALLING ON HARD TIMES

PORTER SQUARE

FIRE SHUTTERS CHOCHO’S INDEFINITELY

Chocho’s started the summer off on a terrifying note after a fire on May 2 forced the Korean restaurant and its neighbors within the Porter Exchange food court to shut down, according to the Cambridge Day. Japanese spot Yume Ga Arukara, I Love Sushi, and Bourbon Coffee USA reopened shortly after the fire, but Chocho’s remained closed and boarded up as of press time.

Coincidentally, another local Korean restaurant in Cambridge, Koreana, also had a fire on May 2, but reopened shortly after.

MID-CAMBRIDGE

CAFE ANTHONY

Cafe Anthony has been forcibly shuttered, according to Boston Restaurant Talk. The mid-Cambridge cafe/eatery was seized by the Middlesex Sheriff ’s Department Enforcement Unit on June 8, Boston Restaurant Talk reports. The cafe took to Facebook to dispel rumors of health and sanitary issues, attributing the closing to “legal issues that we have forcefully

encountered with the property owner” and anticipate being closed for “approximately three weeks.”

CENTRAL SQUARE

HARVEST CO-OP

One of Central Square’s staple grocery stores sent out an email plea this spring, telling shoppers that if the memberowned market doesn’t meet an ambitious $300,000 fundraising goal “in a couple of months,” it will likely shutter in Central Square by August. Board Directory Lydia Peabody wrote that people could support the store by buying in bulk and purchasing gift cards but not using them for a year and a half to two years, according to the Cambridge Day. Peabody wrote that individual contributions and further support from members “will significantly increase the likelihood that we will survive this.” The coop announced that it would hire a community organizer, who will be specifically responsible for arranging a fundraising campaign and a membership drive to save the store.

DO-GOODERS, KEY PLAYERS & GAME CHANGERS

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NADYA OKAMOTO (IN WHITE)

NADYA OKAMOTO, PERIOD

BY REENA KARASIN

N

adya Okamoto is a rising junior at Harvard, works full-time running a nonprofit, ran for City Council last fall, and is set to publish her first book in October.

Okamoto was spread thin but filled with excitement on the afternoon of our interview. Her chapter deadlines were competing with her schoolwork for her attention, and by noon she’d already made hours of phone calls for some of her five jobs.

While Okamoto has countless projects vying for her attention, she throws the most of herself into PERIOD, a nonprofit she co-founded in high school that provides period products to women in need.

“I grew up in a family where we talked about bodies very regularly,” Okamoto says.

Photo by Sioux Nesi.

“My mom taught me what sex was before anyone else in my grade knew what it was, in like kindergarten. And I remember getting sent to the the principal’s office for educating my friends on what sex and bodies were.”

During a time when Okamoto’s family was legally homeless, she gathered stories from homeless women and wrote them down in her journal. She discovered a common thread: “Almost all of the stories I’d collected were stories about periods—homeless women using toilet paper, socks, brown paper grocery bags, and even cardboard,” she says.

These stories were Okamoto’s inspiration for PERIOD, which has helped people with more than 250,000 periods since its founding in late 2014, with over

150 campus chapters across the globe. The nonprofit is moving its headquarters to New York this summer.

Okamoto’s first book, “Period Power: A Manifesto for the Menstrual Movement,” will be released in the fall. “Throughout history, periods have been hidden from the public,” the book description reads. “They’re taboo. They’re embarrassing.

They’re gross. And due to a crumbling or nonexistent national sex ed program, they are misunderstood. Because of these stigmas, a status quo has been established to exclude people who menstruate from the seat at the decision-making table.”

Okamoto wrote the book in two months during the school year. In the spring, she traveled to speak about the book as pre-sales

went live, working independently to make up for all the class time she missed.

Last fall, the then-19-year-old made waves in Cambridge with her City Council attempt, receiving both hate mail and admiration from across the country. Her platform centered on giving young people a voice in a city brimming with college students.

Although she didn’t win a City Council seat, she says she’s happy with the results of her campaign.

“The reason I felt so at peace with the election results was I had accomplished what I really wanted to,” she says. “We skyrocketed student turnout numbers, we showed people that a young person can run—nationally—and we brought a really progressive platform to the stage.”

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DO-GOODERS, KEY PLAYERS & GAME CHANGERS

CHRISTOPHER HOPE, THE LOOP LAB

BY REENA KARASIN

A

CHRISTOPHER HOPE 16 Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers | scoutcambridge.com

music and podcast recording studio opening this fall will provide a space for underserved young people in the Port neighborhood to learn about sound engineering, music production, and workforce development.

Christopher Hope started working with young people from the Port area while he was a student at Harvard’s divinity school, and soon discovered how important music was to many of the people he met.

“A big part of my job was reaching out to young adults that were at risk,” Hope says. “One thing that I noticed was that a great way to relate with that age group was through music.

Oftentimes when you’re working with young adults, there’s suspicion—is this guy working for the police? But when they found out that I made music also, that I’m an artist, that I rap, that I also produce, I actually shared my music with some individuals, actually would produce music for them, when I found out that they also made music, it just opened up a relationship, it opened up a mentorship.”

Hope met Lillian Hsu, director of public art and exhibitions at the Cambridge Arts Council, in late 2016, and the two brainstormed ways to connect the Port neighborhood’s urban youth with the surrounding booming

technology environment. “[We tried to] find out if there’s a way to really bridge the gap between these urban youths and the digital economy that surrounds them, because oftentimes these individuals are enclosed by Kendall Square, by MIT, by Harvard, but they don’t necessarily have access,” Hope says.

The product is a six-month workforce development program focused on music production and sound engineering where they will learn both the hard and soft skills necessary to be competitive in Cambridge’s job market.

There will be monthly training modules on subjects like budgeting. Students will also learn conflict mediation techniques and how to respond to a stabbing with CPR and first aid.

“We’re trying to really change the narrative of the way that we connect with urban youths by operating at the intersection of sound and technology, by providing young people from underrepresented backgrounds with the tools to express themselves creatively while providing them with an on-ramp to the digital economy,” Hope says.

The Loop Lab has partnered with WBUR for a corporate internship program following the six-month program, so that students can get real-world experience. The partnership also lets the Loop Lab learn what skills Photos by Sasha Pedro.

Best Music Venue

THE MIDDLE EAST: Best Music Venue are most relevant for students.

The Loop Lab internships at WBUR will be paid, addressing a common barrier for lowerincome people navigating the sea of unpaid media internships.

The program will accept six students for each six-month cycle. The founders are looking for people between the ages of 18 and 26 who live in the Port neighborhood and have graduated high school.

The Loop Lab will be built out this summer at 872 Massachusetts Ave. It was important to Hope that the studio be local.

“We’d really love to challenge the notion of these young adults as to what is possible,” Hope says.

“They pass by Kendall, they pass

by Google, they pass by some of these companies and there’s no connection. It might as well be a whole, completely different city.

They don’t necessarily see their life or their career ending up in Kendall, and so I think this will work to bridge the gap and also push open the glass door.”

Tyrie Daniel, 26, will be the Loop Lab’s first student. Hope is Daniel’s mentor, and asked him to provide input as the project gets off the ground. Daniel explains that he has advised the founders on how to best communicate with young people in the neighborhood and the importance of taking their input into account.

Daniel has long been interested in music and has recently gotten into podcasts, he says.

“I was adding my input, from a perspective of innercity youths and my experience in the city, seeing everything going on around me without me being accepted,” Daniel says.

“I felt like everything around me was getting done, and I was constantly getting pushed to the side, with rents rising higher than I could afford or even my parents could afford. These companies are coming in, they’re supplying jobs, but me not being in college, I didn’t reach any of the requirements when I looked online to apply.”

The Loop Lab will meet the city’s young people at a time when help from the city dwindles, according to Hsu. “The city services are decreasing once a young person is out of high school,” Hsu says.

“So if a young person comes out of high school and does not happen to choose the college track at that time, then there are fewer services and there are even fewer opportunities for internships, because some companies and organizations are going, for their interns, to matriculated students in the area colleges, so they miss out on that opportunity.”

Hope says that once the Loop Lab is up and running he hopes to develop further programming in the studio, including a mentorship initiative for girls between the ages of 12 and 18 and low-cost classes on subjects like recording basics that would be open to the public.

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DO-GOODERS, KEY PLAYERS & GAME CHANGERS

SOFIA AND KIM BERNSTEIN

BY ADAM SENNOTT

SOFIA AND KIM BERNSTEIN

I

n 2015, 9-year-old Sofia Bernstein was invited to the White House after she wrote a letter to President Barack Obama asking him why there weren’t any women depicted on U.S. currency.

Now, Sofia and her mother, Kim, have their sights set on honoring the women of Cambridge who worked to secure the passage of the 19th amendment, which gave women the right to vote.

“It was shocking when I learned that in Cambridge we only have three statues that depict women, and none of

them are real historical figures,” Sofia said at a June city council meeting. “Symbols matter, especially to kids. When we see something, we ask our parents ‘What is that?’ And if we don’t see any statues of women in Cambridge, how can we learn about what they did to make Cambridge great?”

Much like Obama, the council seemed impressed by Sofia and Kim’s initiative, and voted unanimously to have City Manager Louis A. Depasquale work with the Historical Commission, the Women’s Commission, and other departments to commission

18 Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers | scoutcambridge.com

a public art piece, statue, or memorial commemorating the women in Cambridge who worked to pass the 19th amendment.

Councilor Alanna Mallon says she has known the Bernstein family and been “inspired by Sofia for a long time.”

“The fact that she is now involved in this movement is so inspiring,” Mallon says. “To me, having someone so young, and so articulate, and so passionate about moving this issue of women in the community and making sure that women are visible and making sure that they are seen for their accomplishments, it gives me a lot

of hope for the future.”

Mallon adds that it’s important for young women to see the women that came before them.

“Cambridge has a rich history of women’s political involvement, and the centennial of the 19th amendment is the perfect time to honor their contributions,” Mallon says. “‘You can’t be what you can’t see’ is a phrase women often say, and currently Cambridge does not have a memorial or statue depicting a real, historical woman, that showcases the dedicated but often unseen work that women do.”

“I am excited about the possibility of this project to not Photos by Derek Kouyoumjian.

only bring a new piece of public art to our city, but to also educate our residents and showcase a more complete version of our city’s history,” Mallon says.

Sofia’s mother, Kim, says she got the idea for the landmark after the current Treasury Department, under President Donald Trump, declined to commit to putting Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill, according to the New York Times.

The initiative was started by the Obama Administration, and the design of the new bill was scheduled to be released in 2020.

“We don’t even really know that it’s not going to happen,” Kim says. “But it’s just realizing that there’s a very good chance it may not.”

Kim says she reached out to Sarah Burks, preservation planner for the Cambridge Historical Commission, and other city officials to ask if anything was being planned for the centennial anniversary of the passage of the 19th amendment in 2020.

Kim says she told officials, “We need to do something that is big.”

She had heard about an initiative to build more statues of women in New York City’s Central Park, which features 23 statues of men and none depicting real women, according to the Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony Statue Fund. New York City Parks Commissioner Mitchell Silver announced plans to build statues of Anthony and Stanton in Central Park in the coming years.

The imbalance stretches nationwide: As of February 2016, there were an estimated 5,193 statues depicting historic figures across the United States, according to the Smithsonian. Only 394 of them were of women.

“It’s not that this is happening in isolation,” Kim explains.

As for building a monument in Cambridge, Sofia told the council that she doesn’t think the city will have any trouble finding women worthy of the honor.

“When I wrote to President Obama, I gave him a long list of possible women for our money,” Sofia said. “And now, as we are planning to celebrate one hundred years of women’s right to vote, we are really lucky

to have a long list of possible candidates for a statue of a woman from Cambridge who fought for this important right.”

Women in Cambridge were certainly active in the fight to earn the right to vote, Burks says.

There were “a lot” of women from Cambridge involved in the suffrage movement, she adds, though the commission is still in the preliminary stages of researching their actual roles.

Some biographical information on the women involved in the movement has been compiled by the Cambridge Women’s Heritage Project, a database which recognizes and celebrates the accomplishments of women who lived in Cambridge from 1630 until today, according to the project’s website. The database contains profiles of more than 400 women and women’s organizations.

So far Burks has identified more than a dozen women listed in the database who were involved in the suffrage movement and is continuing to research their contributions.

Among the women profiled by the Heritage Project is Alice Stone Blackwell, a suffrage journalist and daughter of renowned suffragist Lucy Stone. Blackwell worked for her mother’s newspaper, Woman’s Journal, and edited and distributed a periodical collection of suffrage news articles known as the Woman’s Column. She also founded the Massachusetts League of Women Voters.

“She was a champion of women’s rights for many years, as well as, at one time, an associate editor of Ladies Home Journal,” the Heritage Project says. “She was involved with the National American Women’s Suffrage Association, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, the Women’s Trade Union League, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the American Peace Society.”

She lived most of her life in Dorchester, but moved to Cambridge in 1936 and lived there until she died in 1950, according to the Heritage Project.

Florence Hope Luscomb was one of the first women to graduate with an architecture degree from MIT, according to

the Heritage Project, and worked at the Boston Equal Suffrage Association. She started selling copies of the Woman’s Journal on Boston Common and giving speeches on suffrage throughout New England, and became one of the founding members of the League of Women Voters, according to the Heritage Project.

“Cambridge suffragists

That same year, the Cambridge Suffrage Headquarters opened at 177 Hampshire Street, Burks says. The building is now residential. The group later moved to 560 Massachusetts Ave. where the Central Square Target stands today.

“They really were such pioneers in the work that they [did] to bring that fundamental

“We only have three statues that depict women, and none of them are real historical figures.

Symbols matter, especially to kids.” held rallies, knocked on doors, petitioned the city and the legislature, and led a grassroots movement for the cause, just as women in other towns were doing all across the country,” Burks says.

“They brought in speakers from England and other parts of the U.S. to come and talk to Cambridge residents about it,” she adds.

The women “met for years in people’s homes,” Burks says. Then, around 1915, the Cambridge Political Equality Association and the Cambridge Woman Suffrage Association merged. They later became known as the Cambridge League of Women Voters.

right to women,” Kim says.

The goal is to have the piece built and ready for display by the hundredth anniversary of the amendment’s passage on August 18, 2020, Kim says.

Whenever the monument winds up being built, Councilor Dennis Carlone says he hopes the monument is more than just a plaque.

“I hope it is truly at the scale of what is being proposed,” Carlone says. “I realize it could be a beautiful plaque, and wouldn’t that be nice, but it should be a sculpture and it should represent all women.”

scoutcambridge.com | Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers 19

DO-GOODERS, KEY PLAYERS & GAME CHANGERS

CRIMSONBIKES

BY EDDIE SAMUELS AND REENA KARASIN

DAISY CHIU & CHARLES JAMES 20 Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers | scoutcambridge.com

W

hen Charles T. James and Daisy Chiu wanted to make biking more accessible, they turned to cell phone plans.

Cell phone companies know that people can’t or won’t shell out $800 on a phone up front, so they turn it into a monthly fee of $30.

Bikes are expensive as well, and a several-hundred-dollar price tag can be a huge barrier to the myriad benefits that biking offers.

So James and Chiu, co-founders of CrimsonBikes, decided to launch a plan where people can pay off the bike over 24 to 36 months, with repairs included.

“Instead of walking in and saying, ‘I want to buy that $650 bike,’ now you can come and pay $40 a month and not only do you get the bike, but you also get your service for free,” James says. “Now you have something that works with your lifestyle rather than having to budget for it or worry about that time when you get a flat tire and you’re pinching pennies.”

But affordability is just one aspect of accessibility that Chiu and James want to tackle. CrimsonBikes also aims to address convenience, social-cultural inclusiveness, and physical accessibility.

For people with busy lives— maybe because they’re working multiple jobs, or juggling childcare—CrimsonBikes has a mobile bike shop that will come to people for a $10 fee.

In terms of social-cultural inclusiveness, Chiu and James are working to open the traditionally white and male biking world to women and people of color. They’re being mindful of who they hire to work in their stores and who they feature in their marketing.

James says that he and Chiu, as two people of color, are anomalies in the biking world, and they’re striving to help everyone see a place for themselves in it.

Physical accessibility is an issue that’s often glossed over in biking, according to James, who says that the vast majority of bike stores don’t have any equipment available onsite for people with physical disabilities.

“There are 50 million Photos by Chris McIntosh.

“Instead of walking in and saying, ‘I want to buy that $650 bike,’ now you can come and pay $40 a month ... Now you have something that works with your lifestyle.”

Americans who have a disability of some form,” James says.

“There’s not a lot of folks thinking about how we can extend this service or experience to them.”

The issue became especially important to CrimsonBikes when Chiu, who uses a wheelchair, joined the team. Now the founders make sure to have accessible bikes and equipment in their stores.

She explains that there are various accommodations that can be made for those who can’t ride a standard bike, including electric cycles like the one she uses.

“For me, for example, balance is a big thing, so I need the tricycle setup,” Chiu says.

“Adaptations like wheels or adaptations like horns or tandem situations [are things] that, a lot of the time, are limited to people who go to get extensive physical therapy but aren’t able to take them home with them.”

J

ames knows firsthand what worlds biking can open up.

If you had told him when he was an incoming freshman at Harvard that one day he’d be the owner of a bike shop, he would

have had a very simple answer: “What’s a bike shop?”

In the 10 years since James started CrimsonBikes in his Harvard dorm room, bikes have become a huge part of his life.

But he still remembers his first, unpleasant biking experiences.

“My only experience with bikes was $10 bikes from our local thrift store,” James says. “Growing up, we didn’t have a whole lot of money, and then I had tried working on a bike once when I was a kid, and I remember, my brakes had stopped working and I thought I could figure this out. I completely failed and scraped my little hands up, and I swore it off.”

But James discovered his love for cycling a few years later when his roommate, Daniel Lorenzana, let him borrow his bike to get to class one day. “He was the person who exposed me to the drug that is biking,” James says.

Eventually, after James repeatedly borrowed that bike, Lorenzana made it clear it was time for him to find his own. The pair took a bike that had been left in the donation area at Harvard at the end of the summer and

fixed it up, and James finally had a bike of his own.

But James and Lorenzana decided to go beyond servicing their own bikes. Over time, by gathering and fixing up more unwanted bikes, the two had a collection on their hands.

“We realized we could fix bikes up for other people, and we started doing that. And we’d done all this work to get people onto bikes, but what could we do to maximize this impact?” James says. “And so, in the summer of 2009, we took some of the bikes that we’d built up, and made a fleet of them, and made them available to students to come and check out.”

Now managing Harvard’s first ever bike-share operation, the two had no problem maintaining the equipment, but they needed someone who could handle the logistics and customer service.

“I didn’t really come on until it came out of their bedroom space—when it was more than just a hush-hush project of them gleefully working on bikes, and more of a real thing,” Chiu says.

“They were really good at bikes, but didn’t have time to do the back-end cleanup of organizing and talking to people.”

“When I was in elementary school, I was already an entrepreneur,” Chiu says. “I used to make things and sell them all the time. When I got to college I kind of ran a second-hand shop from my dorm room. I was not supposed to hang things from those water pipes, but I did anyway. I’ve always had that kind of mind. I also love to talk to people and help people.”

James and Chiu, classes of 2010 and 2008 respectively, got jobs elsewhere—Chiu in Boston Public Schools and James in the tech sector—before switching to CrimsonBikes full-time.

Lorenzana, now a doctor, left CrimsonBikes after he graduated in 2009.

“I was splitting my time between these two things and not able to do either one really well, so what should I focus my attention on? It should obviously be the thing that gets me really jazzed every morning when I wake up,” James says.

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DO-GOODERS, KEY PLAYERS & GAME CHANGERS

THE CAMBRIDGE COMMUNITY FOUNDATION

BY LEE GJERTSEN MALONE

A

s the United States becomes increasingly unfriendly to immigrants at the federal level, the Cambridge Community Foundation (CCF) is working to support immigrants within the bounds of the city.

The CCF supports projects that help Cambridge residents from all backgrounds. The nonprofit, founded in 1916, has provided help to immigrants in the community for years—by supporting local literacy and language programs, for example— but with the changing landscape for immigrants in the U.S., the group determined that there’s a growing need for legal help.

Cambridge residents are known for extending “their kindness and sense of community,” to immigrants, says CCF President and CEO Geeta Pradhan. “But the issue we saw not being supported was the need for legal defense.”

The CCF partnered with the city to form the Cambridge Legal Defense Fund for Immigrants earlier this year. The program is designed to help local immigrants, especially those with low incomes, get the funds they need to work through legal issues surrounding their immigration statuses. Larger cities like Boston, New York, and San Francisco have similar programs in place.

The fund will help pay for immigrants’ legal defense expenses, as well as the many and varied fees that many immigrants who are not U.S. citizens face— such as the $200 fee for a legally required doctor’s exam if you are called to immigration court, and

the $465 application fee for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

“The people need to know their rights,” Pradhan says, including the right not to incriminate themselves when questioned, which some people may not understand without proper legal advice.

Many immigrants also need translators, she says, and there is such a backlog of cases right now that there are organizations specifically training attorneys with other areas of expertise how to handle immigration status cases. The goal of the legal defense fund is to cover as many of these needs as possible for local immigrants by supporting local non-profit organizations.

In Massachusetts, there are about 19,000 students eligible for DACA status, over 12,000 workers with Temporary Protective Status, and thousands more people who are seeking asylum, according to the CCF. The organization has no cityspecific data on undocumented immigrants in Cambridge, but the data it does have shows that 27 percent of residents are foreign-born and 40 percent of children living here have at least one foreign-born parent.

Estimates also show that 25 percent of high school students are part of the DACA program.

“A small donation can make a big difference, even a few dollars,” Pradhan says, explaining that those funds could go toward covering a required fee or the cost of a translator for a person or family facing immigration court.

The fund was kickstarted

22 Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers | scoutcambridge.com

GEETA PRADHAN with a seed donation of $50,000, and organizers hope to raise $500,000 through a GoFundMe. When Mayor Marc McGovern announced the fund’s formation earlier this year, he said that despite the city’s longstanding status as a sanctuary city, “symbolism is not enough,” according to the Cambridge Day. Instead, he argued, being a sanctuary city means protecting all the members of the Cambridge community from “xenophobic policies.”

McGovern said he hoped that Cambridge would step up the same way residents did after the devastating Berkshire Street fire in December 2016. The community raised more than half a million dollars within days of the fire that damaged 18 buildings and displaced more

than 100 people.

The GoFundMe page raised more than $145,000 as of late June, far shy of the $500,000 target that would allow four non-profit legal organizations to add another full-time employee, each of whom could represent 400 to 500 people, as well as help 200 DACA students pay their application fees or post bail. CCF will give the money to other organizations that are already working to help immigrants with these needs.

While Pradhan says she is confident that the people of Cambridge want to help, she says many may not realize that “there is a tremendous need here.”

To donate to the GoFundMe, visit gofundme.com/ immigrant-legal-defense-fund.

Photo by Irina M. / IM Creative Photography.

ANNE PLAISANCE

BY REENA KARASIN

W

hen visual artist Anne Plaisance moved here from Paris, she found two things striking: the sense of community in Greater Boston, and the number of people experiencing homelessness.

She wracked her brain for a way that she could help Cambridge’s homeless population. She thought of starting a tiny houses project, but the executive director of the Transition House explained why that wasn’t a feasible solution.

“One thing that I didn’t know is that very often homeless women are survivors of domestic violence and abuse, so they have high safety issues and concerns,” Plaisance says. “And to be in a tiny house, visible, it’s the

tries to design projects that won’t be stressful and don’t require any artistic background.

She once had the women sit around a circular table and draw a facial feature of the person across from them. Then they each moved over a seat to draw the next facial feature, so that they all collaborated on each piece of artwork and therefore weren’t as critical of their own work. Limiting the time for a particular step can also help take the thinking out of artmaking, she explains.

Plaisance, who works in all sorts of visual media—ranging from painting to photography to sculpture—finds the women she works with inspiring.

“The more I knew these

“The objective goal is for the ladies to have fun—to enjoy, to destress, to smile, to laugh. So I really try to create an atmosphere of trust.” [opposite] of what you should do for a homeless woman.”

She worked with the Transition House to come up with a different plan that would better serve the women who live there. What developed was the Art’s Room Project, a series of workshops designed to promote healing through art.

“The objective goal is for the ladies to have fun—to enjoy, to destress, to smile, to laugh,” Plaisance says. “So I really try to create an atmosphere of trust, of safety, so that they can be themselves, and have fun and discover, and just forget about all the problems that they have to deal with on a daily basis.”

Many of the women bring their young children to class, and the participants often change from week to week, so Plaisance

Photos courtesy of Anne Plaisance.

women, [I realized] you need to have a lot of strength in you to say ‘I’m leaving everything, I’m taking my kid, I’m taking one bag of my belongings, and I’m leaving.’ I think it’s an extremely hard decision,” she explains.

So she decided to create a Wonder Woman series, where she photographed the women at the Transition House in costumes and masks of their own designs.

Plaisance encouraged them to incorporate elements from their cultural backgrounds to make the costumes as individualized as possible.

“I really want them to create this representation of themselves,” she says. “I want them to be more proactive in the creative process, so I will bring as many different tools and materials, fabrics, objects, that I can think of.”

scoutcambridge.com | Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers 23

DO-GOODERS, KEY PLAYERS & GAME CHANGERS

EVA BREITENBACH, SOPHIA

BY REENA KARASIN

W

EVA BREITENBACH

hen Eva Breitenbach was in graduate school at MIT, a medical scare led her to seek a therapist’s help. She was vocal about the support she found in therapy, and before long people around campus started coming up to her and telling her about the trouble they’d had connecting with mental health therapists.

“People were telling me they called dozens of therapists and not gotten any calls back, that they were just really overwhelmed and didn’t know where to start, or that they’d gone in and after the first session just thought ‘This person is not a good fit for me,’” Breitenbach says. “I started talking to therapists and realized that for their part, they also struggle to find the clients who are the right

fit for their expertise and for their interests. I started thinking there has to be a better way to match up the people who are looking for therapists with the therapists that are looking for patients.”

That “better way to match” became Sophia, a startup that launched last year. Sophia—the Greek word for “wisdom”— connects people searching for therapy with therapists that offer the right type of treatment and are accepting patients.

People looking for therapists often end up getting no response from clinicians’ offices, according to Breitenbach.

“Therapists are basically small business owners,” she says about small private practices. “There’s a lot of administrative work required. If a patient isn’t a good

We do of other AND We’re

fit for the therapist, it can be pretty time-intensive for the therapist to call the patient back, play phone-tag with them, and actually connect them with someone who will be a good fit. And they’re not really paid for that time.”

To make the match, Sophia gives both patients and therapists questionnaires. Patients describe why they are seeking therapy and information on time and location preferences, while therapists answer a more extensive set of questions about their treatment style, their availability, and whether they take insurance.

Patients have the option to speak with someone from Sophia after filling out the form to discuss options further.

Sophia has over 700 patients and 135 therapists in its network, according to Breitenbach.

“You know what you’re dealing with, but you don’t necessarily know what to look for in a therapist,” Breitenbach says.

“We do have a lot of experience knowing what types of therapy are going to be the best fit for what symptoms, and so we do that

matching on your behalf. We’re almost like the translator between the patient and the therapist.”

Breitenbach says she went into Sophia from the point of view of a patient, but by working with therapists and seeing their excitement about the service, she has come to appreciate how

like she has a superpower with are former athletes who are really competitive, working at highintensity jobs, and are trying to figure out what’s a healthier way to think about where their purpose comes in life and what work/life balance might look like and what the source of their competitive

“We’re almost like the translator between the patient and the therapist.” much it can offer therapists as well—from a stream of patients who are the right fit to less time on administrative tasks, which means more time with patients.

As Sophia’s network of therapists grows, Breitenbach and her team are able to get more and more precise with their matches.

“I was talking to a therapist who was saying that she sees a broad spectrum of people, but the clients that she really feels

drives are,” Breitenbach says.

The team is also working to build payment and scheduling into Sophia’s patient portal, which would create a streamlined, simple way for people to pay for and set up appointment with just a few clicks. In addition to making the process easier for patients, Breitenbach says the new software would cut down administrative time and effort for

therapists even further.

Insurers don’t typically reimburse therapists much, so many therapists don’t accept in-network insurance. Because of this dynamic, Sophia chooses not to match people within their insurance, opting to make the best match from a health perspective.

“It’s linked to the way that our society still thinks about mental health, where it’s not quite at the same level as physical health,” Breitenbach explains.

“In the long run, I would love to be able to effect change there, and actually to be able to get enough clout to push those up, but in the short-term you kind of have to work within the system sometimes, unfortunately.”

Patients do not have to pay anything extra to use Sophia. The price of their first therapy session goes to Sophia, and therapists do the session for free. Breitenbach is dedicated to keeping the matching free for patients.

Photo by Derek Kouyoumjian.

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DO-GOODERS, KEY PLAYERS & GAME CHANGERS

PETER DIMURO, THE DANCE COMPLEX

BY EMILY FROST

P

eter DiMuro’s transformation from “pudgy, in-the-closet country boy” to professional dancer, choreographer, and artistic director started with a role in his high school’s production of “Carnival.” Through this first foray into musical theater, he discovered the freeing nature of dance and the chance to express himself without words, he says.

DiMuro, now the executive artistic director at The Dance Complex, was hooked. And over the past 30 years, his awardwinning career has included leading dance companies—Liz Lerman’s Dance Exchange, Dance/DC Metro, Peter DiMuro Performance Associates—and teaching, performing, and choreographing all over the world.

A year shy of 60, DiMuro has refused to retreat in any way, instead taking on new roles, including as the inaugural 2018 Choreographer in Residence at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

His days are packed at The Dance Complex (536 Massachusetts Ave.), which serves more than a thousand dancers of all levels and ages each week. The complex also puts on festivals and workshops like “Running From/ Running to...Cambridge,” which

PETER DIMURO shares immigrant and refugee stories from the community through dance.

Since arriving at The Dance Complex in 2013, DiMuro has shepherded dance residency programs for internationally acclaimed dancers and up-andcoming artists, introduced an advisory council, and overseen a year-long reflection on the mission of the 27-year-old organization.

On top of the administrative demands of his leadership role, DiMuro also makes time for his own creative contributions at the organization, and for his dance company, Peter DiMuro/Public Displays of Motion.

Five years into his role as executive artistic director, DiMuro reflects on his artistic life and the future.

26 Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers | scoutcambridge.com

How do you fill up your creative well?

People see me as an extrovert.

I’m truly an introvert, and I love spending time alone. I don’t get enough of it. For whatever reasons, I’m much clearer of head. And whatever dysfunctions I grew up within our family, the youngest of three and usually the people-pleaser, when I’m around people I try to be pleasing. And so when I can free myself of pleasing others and have a focus on what it is I’m making, that usually helps me. I go to dinner alone. I go away for a couple of days here or there as much as I can. That seems to help. And on the flip side of that, when I can’t do that, I just try to keep including myself in that equation.

Have you ever suffered from burnout?

The five years that I left Dance Exchange, I was in my mid-40s to early 50s, I’d been with the company for 15 years. I was in a quandary, it’s like the mid-life crisis you think you’ll never go through.

I’d worked hard and was on a roll of making probably 10 new works a year. Stopping doing it while I was still capable—I, one, needed a rest, and two, started to wonder: ‘What is my voice now?

Who am I without this large organization that I’d been with?’

And I would say coming to The Dance Complex has solidified a lot of that in a way.

My job here is to be an artist who is also the executive director; that’s a very important thing, I

think, for arts organizations to realize. I’ve fought for that in different ways over the years, mainly because I feel once we only have a business approach to an arts organization, then you put at risk the ideals of what it is to be an artist. It’s not just about the bottom line, it’s about what does the community need and what’s the culture of the way you work, all those kinds of things.

You’ve said Liz Lerman calls you the “Mayor of Dance.” What does that mean to you?

I just so believe that dance does save lives, including mine.

Dance is the unsung hero of the arts, but it’s also the unsung hero for a society. To be a citizen who dances, you open up to a whole new language and a whole new way of communication, a whole new way of reconciliation.

It’s really hard to be mad at somebody when you’re shaking their hand, when you’re hugging each other and that is in its own form its own dance. So there’s so much about movement that I feel is a gift. To be a citizen, if not the mayor, a citizen of dance is an important thing.

What gets you out of bed in the morning and what’s a typical day for you?

On my best days, I think it’s when I really envision what’s going to happen, and that usually has lots of shifts and turns in dealing with a business thing for half an hour, somebody who is upset for another 25 minutes, someone who’s very happy over lunch.

It’s a little hard now because we have hundreds of people who come through the door every day, so it’s hard for me to be engaged with everybody. Just like in dancing, the transitions are really important in a day like mine, or anybody who deals with a lot of pulls, on the development end, on the admin end, on the creativein-studio end. I try to prep myself walking from one place to the next or from one floor down to the next. And there’s this idea that I am physically and emotionally shifting to be prepared to go into this next room.

Conversely, what keeps you up at night?

Some of it is money, but not all of it is money. Some of it is the idea of being able to translate the value of what it is that we do. But when

Photo, left, courtesy of The Dance Complex.

Photo, right, from CATALYSTS by Bill Parsons/Maximal Image.

it really comes down to it, it’s not so much getting the money, which I think is easy if you know how to translate value. Because of course, it’s a no-brainer that people should be supporting this place or supporting dance in general. But we’re up against—just as we are in our government right now—we’re up against people who lie and people who are out of touch with their own truth. And I wouldn’t say it’s so much about anti-dance, it’s about anti-human. We have to really find ways to translate the value of human beings.

So we have to understand that people have this picture of dancers. It’s in New England and we have this Puritan streak, so it’s sensual and therefore taboo, which is just craziness. Or else, it’s valueless. The smartest people I know are dancers because we’re in our bodies and our brains at the same time.

It’s the translation [that] keeps me up. That shifts with every transition in the day you might have, and [when] you go to meet a funder or a potential board member or a new student, it’s: How do I open this door for them so they can see for themselves what this is? And what color is

that door, and what’s the latch on it, and are there window panes?

How do I paint this picture to make it a new place for them?

What assumptions do people make about you that you wish you could correct?

I feel like for me and for many people, getting older, you become part of the wallpaper. As I get older and some of our [students] don’t know that I’ve had a dance career or that I’m even making dances.

Sometimes, I feel like there’s this assumption that as we get older, we lose our past. And I’d love for people to know that in some ways, I feel more creative now and I feel like dancing more than I did in my 40s—maybe not my 30s, but my 40s for sure. And there’s just that assumption about people that as they get older and grayer, that they’re not as vitally creative or dynamic. And there’s something that I’m feeling, especially as I approach my next birthday, which is a big one, about how to keep breaking that myth for people and setting a tone here the same way.

Editor’s note: This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and conciseness.

scoutcambridge.com | Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers 27

DO-GOODERS, KEY PLAYERS & GAME CHANGERS

EMILY RAYMOND, VALENTINES FOR THE HOMELESS

BY LEE GJERTSEN MALONE

E

mily Raymond vividly remembers the day three years ago when she first thought of making Valentine’s gifts for local men and women experiencing homelessness. It was a snowy January evening, and she was pushing her youngest son’s stroller down a busy street,

stopping every block because of the piles of snow in her way.

“At every single intersection, there were three people who stopped and helped to pick up the stroller and carry it for me,” she said. “It was a ton of help. But then I remember looking across the street and

28 Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers | scoutcambridge.com

seeing a [man who appeared homeless] who had a shopping cart, who was also stuck in the snow. People were streaming past him—nobody helped him.

Nobody even looked at him.”

Trapped by the snow on other side of the street, Raymond felt helpless. But the impulse to

make a human connection with the man stayed with her.

Inspired by a local project to make cards for seniors and veterans that she and her three kids had participated in, Raymond launched the Valentines for the Homeless Program, which provides bags Photo by Lee Malone.

EMILY RAYMOND

of candy, snacks, toiletries, and other items paired with a handmade Valentine from local children. Raymond’s own kids, as well as her daughter’s class at the Cambridgeport School and children from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in East Cambridge, all help make and decorate the Valentines each winter.

And since that snowy day in Central Square, Raymond says, “The project just gets bigger and bigger.” This year she and her fellow volunteers made and handed out 150 Valentine’s Day gifts at three local shelters.

According to city data, there were 561 people in shelters, transitional

housing, and on the streets this January, which means her project gave to more than a quarter of Cambridge’s homeless residents.

While the goody bags include donated items like gloves, hand warmers, and trail mix, Raymond views the homemade Valentines as the most significant component.

“Something handmade that had some kind of uplifting message for somebody, that’s the most important part—to make sure that people feel that they are seen and that they are loved, and someone spent time making them something,” she says.

Raymond picked Valentine’s Day partly because it was winter when she first got the idea, but also because it makes what she admits is “a cheesy holiday” into something more. She adds that February is one of the toughest months to be homeless in Cambridge because of the brutal weather.

“People think it’s just a romantic holiday ... I knew it would be very unexpected to make Valentines for homeless people,” she says. “But I don’t see how Valentine’s Day has to be limited to romantic love. It can be about friendship, too.”

Donations for the goody bags come from friends and family, members of Raymond’s church, people from her kids’ schools, and even online acquaintances.

This year she started an Amazon wish list for the project so farflung friends and family could contribute.

Raymond says the project takes over her living room as donations pour in and need to be sorted and organized. “There’s boxes stacked from floor to ceiling—it’s a little crazy,” she says with a laugh.

Since the project started as a personal effort, Raymond never reached out for corporate donations, and now she’s proud of the fact that each piece of the gifts she puts together is provided by an individual donor.

“I like that it’s from the people for the people,” she says.

“Every single thing put into the box is from a person who knows about the project, who has acknowledged that there are homeless [people] in this city who need help.”

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DO-GOODERS, KEY PLAYERS & GAME CHANGERS

SUMBUL SIDDIQUI AND ALANNA MALLON, CITY COUNCIL

BY REENA KARASIN

C

ity Councilors Sumbul Siddiqui and Alanna Mallon forged a friendship on the campaign trail last year, bonding over the challenges of being first-time female candidates.

Their friendship has continued over their first six months in office, and they’ve channeled their easy banter into a weekly podcast called “Women Are Here.” The podcast touches on everything from local events to pop culture to latent sexism to city council business, with the goal of making municipal politics interesting and accessible to all Cantabrigians.

What was your first interaction with each other?

SS: It was March 1 of 2017, and you were walking across the crosswalk.

AM: We got together for coffee a few weeks later, and I think we really clicked right away.

SS: It was really organic, and we were both starting this really difficult thing. We just organically started texting each other and developing a friendship through this campaign.

AM: Because as a first-time candidate, as a first-time female candidate, it was really a difficult thing to do. There were many, many times that I would need some advice, or need somebody to tell me “I’m also feeling this way,” and we could keep going.

There were so many times I was

out on the campaign trail and it felt hard, and I would text Sumbul, “Are you also feeling this way?” and she would say yes, and it was helpful to have somebody who was going through the same thing who could really help lift me up and help me get through some of the harder parts of this.

In what ways do you think it was more difficult because you two are women?

AM: The system isn’t necessarily set up for women to run. If you think about men running, they get the support of a lot of other men who have come before them.

They get a lot of introductions to different funders, different unions, different systems of how campaigning works, and as a woman you don’t necessarily have those connections. So I think it was important for both of us to connect and form that foundation and help one another out.

SS: It’s just harder statistically, and then being a woman of color and running—statistically, we have the facts, it’s very hard to raise money, there’s all these other factors.

AM: I think that men enjoy campaigning more, sort of as a general statement. For me, I found it very emotionally draining, and I saw a lot of the men really be energized by being at a forum or being out in public or getting their picture taken, and [a] number of things, where for me it was all about doing all this hard work to

30 Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers | scoutcambridge.com

actually get to do the job. And I just wanted to do the job.

What has it been like since you were elected?

SS: Now we’re in office, there’s no how-to guide. But we want to get a lot of work done, so each of us has been committed to the issues that we care about. We’ve been able to lean on each other as colleagues, because the job is really isolating.

There’s something called open meeting law, which really prevents [the city councilors] from talking to each other and collaborating

and working together, and so I think it prohibits just getting to know people on a humane level.

Where did the idea for this podcast come from?

AM: Sumbul and I both knocked on a lot of doors, and one of the things we heard a lot was people who said I really clue in around election time about the issues in Cambridge, but then in those intervening two years there really is not a way to plug in. Sumbul’s 30, I’m in my late 40s, both generations listen to Photo by Emily Falcigno.

SUMBUL SIDDIQUI AND ALANNA MALLON podcasts. So we thought it’s a great medium to reach any age group here in Cambridge, and we thought we could make municipal government a little bit fun and accessible. We make it light a little bit, we get into some of things that we like to do, like music, television, eating out, and then we also talk about what happened at the council and different events that are coming up that people can get involved in.

SS: We’re not typical, establishment-type politicians.

We’re real people who really care

about our community, and this podcast is representative of that.

We wanted to make it more about our friendship too, and what it’s like to be elected as a woman.

get my thoughts out there, so I had prepared my thoughts on paper. But other times we have a loose outline of what we want to talk about.

AM: Really calling out some of these feminist things, too, what it’s like to be a woman right now.

SS: We share a Google doc, it’s very organic. It’s a fun part of the week for us. It gives us a little break from the meetings, it’s a good time to see each other.

The podcast seems conversational.

What’s the planning process like?

AM: It depends on the week and what’s going on. This past week there was the Inman Square redesign vote, and I wanted to

AM: I’m not the type of person to keep a journal, so some of this is personal for me. I want to keep a record of what we’ve done and things that

we’ve talked about. I’m always surprised when I meet someone and they’re like, “I listen to your podcast.” It is doing the thing that we hoped it would do, which is reaching all ages in a really easy and comfortable way.

I think the people I talk to who listen to our podcast, it’s like they’re instantly friends with me, because they feel like they know us, which is unusual when you think about elected officials.

Editor’s note: This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and conciseness.

scoutcambridge.com | Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers 31

DO-GOODERS, KEY PLAYERS & GAME CHANGERS

JAYMS BATTAGLIA

BY ADAM SENNOTT is “somebody that we’ve always felt we could rely on and look up to.”

He says that Battaglia played an “incredible role” in making Y2Y a reality, from attending meetings to providing advice. She has even stewarded fundraisers for Y2Y that have raised a total of around $30,000, and found a marketing professional who designed the shelter’s logo.

“She sort of, again and again, just leveraged connections to do different things,” Greenberg says.

LGBTQ ADVOCACY

P JAYMS BATTAGLIA COMMUNITY COORDINATOR FOR THE UNIVERSITY LUTHERAN CHURCH

E

very winter, Jayms Battaglia oversees a new group of about 24 to 28 students who join the staff of the Harvard Square Homeless shelter.

The shelter, which opened in 1983, was the first student-run shelter in the country.

Many of the students who work there will go on to work in the social field with schools or the homeless population, Battaglia says. Her role is to mentor them, make sure they’re running the shelter effectively, and ensure that they understand the rules and regulations of running a shelter.

“I also work with them to do reflecting about what it’s like for them to be in the role that they’re in, what they experience on a nightly basis, some of the harsh realities that they experience in the homeless community,” Battaglia says. “Everything from addiction to mental illness, to

just hearing about how folks are sometimes working two and three jobs and they’re still not able to keep up in this economy.”

She says that some of the students struggle with the notion that the shelter is only providing a Band-Aid to a much larger problem.

“That’s a big struggle for a lot of the students at times—is what we’re doing making a difference and can we be doing more, and how can we do more as students?”

Battaglia says. “That’s where encouraging them to become advocates within the community comes out, attending rallies, attending those conversations [and] those roundtables, being part of the larger conversation, advocating within Cambridge for [a] fair housing market, and helping them recognize that being an activist is sometimes part of the work.”

Some of the students who’ve worked with Battaglia have gone on to start shelters of their own,

32 Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers | scoutcambridge.com

including Sam Greenberg and Sarah Rosenkrantz, who founded the Y2Y youth shelter in Harvard Square in 2016, which is designed to meet the needs of youth between the ages of 18 and 24, according to its website.

Battaglia, who served on the board of Y2Y and helped mentor them through the process of starting their own shelter, says people within the youth homeless population felt traditional shelters were dangerous and that they needed a place of their own.

“We were hearing that feedback from these young people, that they didn’t feel safe in a lot of the shelters, [that] they felt like they were bypassed, they felt like there were times when they felt very unsafe physically and emotionally and mentally,” Battaglia says.

Greenberg, who volunteered at the shelter in high school and was later a member of the staff while attending Harvard, says that Battaglia has provided a stable, thoughtful presence, and

rior to working with the church, Battaglia volunteered with the Boston Alliance of LGBTQ Youth (BAGLY) and worked with the Girl Scouts of Boston, where she developed and implemented LGBTQ training for adult volunteers, and a mentoring program that paired LGBTQ girls with LGBTQ adult women in the community.

“I wanted to take home every young person who I came across who was kicked out of their home because they identified as [LGBTQ],” Battaglia says. “I had to learn that I had restrictions on how much I could help. That was hard to learn.”

On the flip side, Battaglia says that being able to witness those moments when a young person is incredibly happy and feels secure with being themselves “is a gift given to us as adults.”

One of the reasons Battaglia says she enjoys working with young people so much is that they aren’t afraid to try new things.

“I enjoy working with young people even more so because they have fresh eyes on the work, they have innovative ideas, they are taking risks and trying new approaches within the old system,” Battaglia says. “That is what gets me out of bed to do the work each day, with the hope that throughout the work I am able to help one person along in their life.”

Photo by Derek Kouyoumjian.

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scoutcambridge.com | Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers 33

DO-GOODERS, KEY PLAYERS & GAME CHANGERS

KEVIN DUA

KEVIN DUA & THE BLACK STUDENT UNION, CAMBRIDGE RINDGE AND LATIN SCHOOL

BY REENA KARASIN

34 Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers | scoutcambridge.com

I

f history teacher Kevin Dua could go back to any point in time, he would go to the room where our country’s forefathers were finalizing the Declaration of Independence.

“I would challenge everything. I would say, ‘Do not leave this room until you change it from “all men are created equal” to “all humans are created equal.”

Abolish slavery with the stroke of a feather and ink.’ That moment in time laid the foundation of our country,” Dua says.

That connection between the origins of the United States and current events is a recurring theme in Dua’s classes, where he emphasizes the relationship as a Photos by Randi Freundlich.

way to help students feel invested in the material.

Dua’s lessons bear little resemblance to the dry, textbookbased history classes some may be familiar with. Once, a class project even grew out of a mistake he made.

“I was teaching my students about slave rebellions from Nat Turner. I created a packet with Nat Turner’s face on it, however I realized that the image was incorrect, that it was Frederick Douglass,” he says. “I told my students, and I was surprised I made that mistake, and then upon further researching I realized that other people had made that mistake as well. We pivoted from that to try to analyze exactly why these mistakes were made.”

The class went on to break with the curriculum and create a documentary called “Reclaiming Black Faces” that analyzed media bias, fake news, and racism.

Dua promotes critical thinking in his courses through lessons that take many forms, from simulations to debates to examinations of current events.

He says he enjoys teaching high school because it’s the last stop on the way to the “real world.”

Dua, who began at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School in September after five years at Somerville High School, was named the Massachusetts History Teacher of the Year last year, and was one of 10 state winners named as finalists for the National History Teacher of the Year award.

Dua was the first African American educator to win the state-level award, he says.

“Being a black male educator, which is the lowest demographic in regard to teaching in the country, it’s an awesome, surreal feeling,” he told Scout in the fall.

“The state award gives me a sense that I have a platform, and within this coming year I’ll use it for the best reasons, for my students.”

D

ua was drawn to CRLS after reports of racism at the school, seeing a community where he could make a difference.

That dedication to fighting racism shaped Dua’s first year at the school. He helped revive

the Black Student Union (BSU) in September and served as its faculty advisor.

The BSU pushed racism at CRLS into the spotlight throughout the year, frustrated with unequal treatment from teachers at a school that is 30 percent black.

or AP classes.

Principal Damon Smith sent out a community email in response to the video saying that the school had work to do regarding “‘microaggressions and the lack of cultural competency in our professional community,’” according to the Cambridge

“The teacher would never be able to remember the names of the students of color who were male.

She said, ‘It’s not my fault, I just get all those rowdy boys confused.’”

The group put out a video at the end of 2017, Cambridge’s Minority Reports, detailing racist micro- and macroaggressions that members had experienced at CRLS. “I was physically pushed out of a class by a teacher, and she called me a ‘fucking animal,’” one student recounts.

“The teacher would never be able to remember the names of the students of color who were male,” another student says. “She said, ‘It’s not my fault, I just get all those rowdy boys confused.’”

Many of the accounts involve people being surprised that students of color were in honors

Day. In an email to staff, Smith wrote that the video wouldn’t be used as a jumping-off point in future discussions because of “‘how the video was distributed’” and “‘elements of the video that implicated specific staff members,’” the Day reports.

Smith, who is black, told PRI podcast “Otherhood” that he only wanted to remove details that identified certain teachers, and that he thought those details would hinder the students’ messages.

Follow-up videos and their effects rippled throughout the rest of the school year. Community members questioned whether Dua was putting words in the

students’ mouths, according to the May 21 “Otherhood” episode. A teacher at the school says in the podcast that CRLS is the most racist place she has ever worked.

“We kind of just wanted a space where we all felt comfortable, and we all felt welcomed, and we all felt valued, because none of us feel that way in school,” a student says in a video that the BSU released this spring.

“We haven’t felt like that ever in school, so I feel like that’s why we started BSU in the first place.”

“We just feel like we don’t matter, we don’t feel the need to come to school, and the worst thing you can do for a student is to lose a student, and you’ve lost many students over the years,” another student says. “So do better.”

Dua intends to step down as faculty advisor for the BSU in the fall, he says, saying the past year has been taxing on him and his family. If no other teacher signs up to be the advisor, the BSU will become defunct.

In the third volume of the Cambridge’s Minority Reports, released in tandem with graduation, students lament the possibility that the BSU won’t continue next year.

“I hope there’s still a BSU, because that’s kind of one of the only things this year that I’ve enjoyed doing,” a student says.

“Even if the actual BSU does not exist next year, if Dua’s room continues to be an open space, and what it is, if he’s still here, I hope that people also gain the confidence to come into that room and continue the open space for years and years,” another student says. “Because finding that open space can bring more confidence than you’d ever know.”

Dua says he doesn’t have any regrets about his decision to come to CRLS, or the work that he and his students did this year.

He believes that it is the job of educators to make young people feel empowered, he says.

“We have the capability to reaffirm our reputation of being this academic institution that prides itself in diversity, respect, and inclusion,” Dua says. “It’s work that can take a lot out of you, yet it’s work that requires optimism,” he adds.

scoutcambridge.com | Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers 35

DO-GOODERS, KEY PLAYERS & GAME CHANGERS

UPGRADE CAMBRIDGE

BY REENA KARASIN

A

group of residents banded together under the name Upgrade Cambridge are lobbying the city to create a municipal broadband network.

Co-founder Saul Tannenbaum has devoted his time to issues at the intersection of technology and politics since retiring from his IT job eight years ago. He served on the city’s Broadband Task Force from 2014 to 2016, which was charged with exploring solutions to two problems: inequitable access to internet and Comcast’s monopoly in the city.

Over 89 percent of households in Cambridge, Boston, and Newton that have an income of more than $20,000 have broadband access, according to GOVERNING. That number dips to 56.4 percent for households below the $20,000 income line, the data shows.

For those who are able to afford internet access, Comcast is often the sole provider. The lack of competition means that there isn’t a built-in incentive for Comcast to improve its prices or services.

“This is a market failure,” Tannenbaum says. “It’s going to require intervention from the city to do something.”

The task force determined that the best way to address the two problems was for the city to develop a municipal broadband system, according to Tannenbaum. The task force presented its findings to the city manager and the City Council in 2016, and Tannenbaum says the task force never received a formal response to the proposal.

Tannenbaum sees municipal broadband as the best avenue to securing free internet for lower-income residents because it represents a permanent investment rather than a subsidy that the city would have to make to a company again and again.

“Cambridge can do it

SAUL TANNENBAUM itself, and then actually have some control of the outcome and keep a good chunk of the revenue in Cambridge and use it for Cambridge purposes,” Tannenbaum says.

The task force found that implementing a municipal broadband network would cost a maximum of $180 million, according to Tannenbaum, who doesn’t see the price tag as insurmountable.

36 Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers | scoutcambridge.com

“Cambridge makes social investments of that size fairly regularly,” he says, noting that the project would receive funding in the form of subscription fees.

The city manager has not responded directly to Upgrade Cambridge’s efforts, according to Tannenbaum.

A spokesperson for the city tells Scout that creating a municipal broadband network is “not possible.”

“The potential for a $200 million capital investment to build a fiber to the premise broadband system in Cambridge make such a project not possible,” Director of Communications and Community Relations Lee Gianetti told Scout in an email.

“The City’s commitment to addressing affordable housing, expanding early childhood education, investing in safe street infrastructure, a $500 million school reconstruction program, and improving the conditions of municipal facilities, like fire stations (to name a few), are substantial financial investments and funding for a municipal broadband system would directly compete with these priority areas.”

Gianetti says that despite Comcast’s monopoly, city officials don’t perceive that residents see creating a municipal broadband network “as a critical issue.”

The City of Cambridge is working to identify other options to address digital equity, according to Gianetti.

Tannenbaum argues that there’s support for municipal broadband both among residents and city councilors, and he hopes that Upgrade Cambridge can make the project more of a priority.

“Cambridge has articulated the goal that all residents should have access to the burgeoning Cambridge economy, and I don’t know how you do that without internet access,” Tannenbaum says.

The ACLU published a report earlier this year called “The Public Internet Option,” which argues that municipal broadband networks are a good way for cities to maintain net neutrality and privacy given the federal government’s negation of protections. Upgrade Cambridge hosted Jay Stanley, the report’s main author, for a discussion in May. Photo by Irina M. / IM Creative Photography.

10TH ANNUAL / 2018 ONE VIBRANT WEEKEND ACROSS CAMBRIDGE SATURDAY & SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 29 & 30 12–6PM EACH DAY PREVIEW PARTY Thursday, September 27, 6–8pm Cambridge Art Association 25 Lowell Street

MORE INFO cambridgeartscouncil.org

Thank you Scout Readers for nominating us BEST FRAME SHOP!

Best Frame Shop

MI CHA E L L EO N I DA : BE ST HAIRC U T

B E S T H AI R S AL O N

MI R ANDA MI L L S : B E S T H AI R CO L O R B E S T H A I R CU T

1426 C a mb r i d ge S t ., # 1 / 6 1 7 -4 9 2 -2 0 0 0 sal onm i c h a e l d o m e n i c .c o m

STANHOP E FRAMERS Experts in the art and craft of fine picture framing since 1972

Union Square 55 Bow Street Somerville, MA 02143 617-666-2000

Back Bay 411 Marlborough Street Boston, MA 02115 617-262-0787

www.StanhopeFramers.com scoutcambridge.com | Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers 37

Vote Now!

FILL OUT THE BALLOT OR MAKE YOUR PICKS AT SCOUTCAMBRIDGE.COM/VOTE 38 Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers | scoutcambridge.com

VOT E O N L I N E AT S C O U TC A M B R I D G E . C O M

VOTING IS YOUR CIVIC DUTY. (But it’s also a lot of fun!)

You nominated your favorite businesses in Cambridge. Now, it’s time to give ’em the push they need to be crowned one of the city’s best. The final round of Scout’s Honored voting is now open.

Select your favorites through July 22 at scoutcambridge.com/vote or mail this paper ballot to Banks Publications, 519 Somerville Ave. #314, Somerville, Ma 02143. You can vote up to five times per category.

Winners will be announced in our next issue, out in early September. Best of luck to all the nominees!

Wellness

Beauty

ACUPUNCTURE o Acupuncture Together o Harvard Square Community Acupuncture Clinic o Middle Path Acupuncture & Chinese Herbal Medicine

BARBERSHOP o East Coast Barbershop o Fast Phil’s o Floyd’s Barbershop

BIKE SHOP o Broadway Bicycle o Cambridge Used Bicycles o CrimsonBikes

JEWELRY o CustomMade o Rebekah Brooks Jewelry o Leo Carroll Jewelers

HAIR COLOR o Judy Jetson Hair - Judy Jetson o Salon Luna - Kayla o Salon Michael Domenic - Miranda Mills

BOOKSTORE o Harvard Book Store o Porter Square Books o Rodney’s Bookstore

KIDS SHOP o The Curious George Store o Henry Bear’s Park o Magic Beans

EYEWEAR SHOP o Brattle Square Optical o Eye Q Optical o General Optical Company

KITCHEN SUPPLIES o Abodeon o China Fair o Tags Hardware

GARDEN SUPPLIES o Bonny’s Landscape Service o Niche Urban Garden Supply o Pemberton Farms

MEN’S CLOTHING o The Andover Shop o Drinkwater’s o J. Press

GIFT SHOP o Black Ink o GrayMist Studio o Joie de Vivre

RECORD SHOP o Cheapo Records o Planet Records o Stereo Jack’s

HARDWARE STORE o Dickson Bros. Hardware Co. o Tags Hardware o Inman Square Hardware

THRIFT OR VINTAGE o The Cambridge Antique Market o Oona’s o Raspberry Beret

HOME DECOR o Abodeon o Design Within Reach o Didriks

WOMEN’S CLOTHING o LOOKS o Mint Julep o Susanna

DENTIST o Dental Restorative Group - Dr. John Chang o Harvard Street Dental o Walker Dental HOLISTIC HEALTH SERVICE o Central Square Health and Wellness o Om Namo Center o Inman Oasis

Shopping

HAIR SALON o Judy Jetson Hair o Salon Luna o Salon Michael Domenic

GYM o Oom Yung Doe o Wellbridge Athletic Club o Healthworks

HAIRCUT o Judy Jetson Hair - Judy Jetson o Salon Michael Domenic - Michael Leonida o Salon Michael Domenic - Miranda Mills

MASSAGE o BodyOne Massage o Harvard Square Shiatsu o Inman Oasis

FACIAL o Beauty Spa Cambridge o Sasha Salon and Spa o Aestheticare Day Spa

PHYSICAL THERAPY o Back On Track Physical Therapy Luke Montrose o Spaulding Cambridge - Anna Schroepfer Kandoyan o Step Ahead Physical Therapy Karen Deane

MANICURE o Beauty Spa Cambridge o Cambridge Nails and Skin Spa o Le’s Beauty & Nail

YOGA o Body & Brain o Om Namo Center o O2 YOGA

TATTOO OR PIERCING o Chameleon Tattoo & Body Piercing o Pino Bros Ink o Redemption Tattoo

Wild Cards DATE NIGHT SPOT o Felipe’s Taqueria o Waypoint o Cambridge School for Culinary Arts ECO-FRIENDLY BUSINESS o Broadsheet Coffee Roasters o Herd Supply Co. o Life Alive

LATE-NIGHT HAUNT o Charlie’s Kitchen o Hong Kong Restaurant o Naco Taco

NEIGHBORHOOD TO RESIDE o Inman Square o North Cambridge o Porter Square

NEIGHBORHOOD TO WORK o Kendall Square o North Cambridge o Porter Square

OLD FAVORITE o The Cantab Lounge o S&S Deli and Restaurant o Harvard University

NEIGHBORHOOD TO DINE o Harvard Square o Central Square o Inman Square

NEIGHBORHOOD TO SHOP o Harvard Square o Central Square o Porter Square

NEW BUSINESS o Boston Inner Tube Water Polo o Broadsheet Coffee Roasters o Porter Square Hotel

PLACE TO PEOPLE WATCH o Crema Cafe o Cambridge City Hall lawn o Grafton Street Continued on next page

Food BAKERY o Flour Bakery o Petsi Pies o Tatte Bakery and Cafe BAR EATS o The Automatic o Shays Pub & Wine Bar o State Park BUTCHER o Mayflower Poultry o Savenor’s Market o Whole Foods CATERING o Bon Me o Formaggio Kitchen o Season To Taste

Drinks SERVER o City Girl Cafe - Sam o Bisq - Teague SERVICE STAFF o The Abbey o Harvest o Les Sablons TAKEOUT o Rod Dee Thai Cuisine o Punjabi Dhaba o Sugar & Spice VEGAN OR VEGETARIAN o Clover o Veggie Galaxy o VO2 Vegan Cafe

CHEAP EATS o Naco Taco o Shake Shack o Skampa

SWEET TOOTH SATISFYER o Christina’s Homemade Ice Cream o Flour Bakery o Toscanini’s Ice Cream

BREAKFAST o Brookline Lunch o Henrietta’s Table o Zoe’s

BURGER o Alden & Harlow o Boston Burger Company o Grafton Street Pub & Grill

BRUNCH o Alden & Harlow o Cafe Luna o Wit’s End

PIZZA o All Star Pizza Bar o Pinocchio’s Pizza & Subs o Area Four

CHEF o Little Donkey - Ken Oringer & Jamie Bissonnette o Waypoint - Michael Scelfo o Puritan & Company Will Gilson

SUSHI o Fuji at Kendall o Cafe Sushi o Mix It

COFFEE SHOP OR CAFE o 1369 Coffee House o Broadsheet Coffee Roasters o Crema Cafe FOOD TRUCK o Bartleby’s Seitan Stand o Bon Me o Roxy’s Grilled Cheese GOURMET OR SPECIALTY FOOD o Christina’s Spice & Specialty Foods o Formaggio Kitchen o Salt & Olive KID-FRIENDLY RESTAURANT o Border Cafe o Boston Burger Company o Full Moon OUTDOOR DINING o Dante o Oleana Restaurant o Atwood’s Tavern PLACE TO SPLURGE o Les Sablons o Oleana o The Table at Season to Taste

TACOS o Lone Star Taco Bar o Naco Taco o Olé AMERICAN o Harvest o Russell House Tavern o Atwood’s Tavern ASIAN o Dumpling House o Mary Chung Restaurant o Thelonious Monkfish LATIN AMERICAN o Olé o Orinoco o Jose’s Mexican Restaurant MIDDLE EASTERN o Moona o Oleana Restaurant o Zuzu Restaurant GREEK o Desfina Restaurant o Greek Corner Restaurant o Saloniki Greek ITALIAN o Giulia o Pammy’s o Sulmona Restaurant

RESTAURANT IN AREA FOUR o Catalyst o Area Four o Coast Cafe RESTAURANT IN CENTRAL SQUARE o Craigie on Main o Little Donkey o PAGU RESTAURANT IN E AST CAMBRIDGE o East Side Bar & Grille o Loyal Nine o Atwood’s Tavern RESTAURANT IN HARVARD SQUARE o Beat Brasserie o Benedetto o Russell House Tavern RESTAURANT IN HURON VILLAGE o The Village Kitchen o Full Moon o Hi-Rise Bread Company RESTAURANT IN INMAN SQUARE o City Girl Cafe o Punjabi Dhaba o Puritan & Company RESTAURANT IN KENDALL SQUARE o Cafe ArtScience o Mamaleh’s Delicatessen o State Park RESTAURANT IN NORTH CAMBRIDGE o Urban Hearth o Frank’s Steak House o The Table at Season to Taste RESTAURANT IN PORTER SQUARE o Christopher’s Restaurant o Shepard o Giulia RESTAURANT OVERALL o Cafe ArtScience o Little Donkey o Puritan & Company

BARISTA o Bom Cafe - Fatima o Broadsheet Coffee Roasters - Oona o Darwin’s Ltd - Ryan BARTENDER o Grafton Street - Morgan o The Rising Bar - Ian Doody o Wit’s End - Zach BEER PROGRAM o Bukowski’s Tavern o Grafton Street o Cambridge Common BREWERY o Cambridge Brewing Co. o John Harvard’s Brewery & Ale House

COCKTAILS o The Automatic o Brick & Mortar o Cafe ArtScience LIQUOR STORE o Cambridge Wine & Spirits o City Liquors o Inman Square Wine & Spirits WINE SHOP o Cambridge Wine & Spirits o Central Bottle o Inman Square Wine & Spirits

Services ARCHITECT OR ARCHITECTURE FIRM o The Galante Architecture Studio o LABhaus o Prellwitz Chilinski Associates

INSURANCE AGENCY o Central Square Insurance Agency o Ralph J. Galante Insurance Agency o WTPhelan Insurance Agency

BANK OR CREDIT UNION o Cambridge Trust Company o MIT Federal Credit Union o Naveo Credit Union

MECHANIC o C.L.M. Auto o Good News Garage o Junior’s Automotive

COMMUNITY CLASSES o Cambridge Center for Adult Education o Agassiz Baldwin Community o Cambridge School for Culinary Arts FLORIST o Brattle Square Florist o Coady Florist o Hallie’s Flower Garden FRAMING o A Street Frames o Big Picture Framing o Cambridge Art & Frame

PET GROOMING o Elliot’s House o Jeana’s Dirty Dog Salon o LaundroMutt PRESCHOOL OR DAYCARE o Bright Horizons o Garden Nursery School o Newtowne School REAL ESTATE AGENCY o Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage o Compass o Griffin Properties

Arts & Entertainment EVENTS SPACE o The Cambridge Masonic Hall o OBERON o Multicultural Arts Center

MUSIC VENUE o Cantab Lounge o The Middle East Restaurant and Nightclub o The Sinclair

MOVIE THEATER o Apple Cinemas o Brattle Theatre o Kendall Square Cinema

PRINT SHOP o Albertine Press o Classic GraphX o Kendall Press

VOT E O N L I N E AT S C O U TC A M B R I D G E . C O M / VOT E

MEMBER PROFILE:

REWAN AL-HADDAD, AVAAZ YOU’VE BEEN A LONGTIME RESIDENT OF INMAN, HOW DID YOU END UP IN CAMBRIDGE? When I graduated from college I was job hunting like a crazy person and found a gig at Avaaz as an Executive Assistant to a Campaign Director in Harvard Square, so I stuck around. Now several years later, and after wearing many hats at the organization, I have my current job.

WHAT BROUGHT YOU TO IL? My friend went to an art show at Industry Lab and I saw it pop up in my feed. When I found out this place offers office space too - it was hard to say no.

stopping climate change, ending the bloody ivory trade, and cutting off the arms supply that fuels the war in Yemen.

I help develop these campaign strategies - like how a decision-maker can be influenced, and what tactics we can use to show massive public support for that decision-maker to act. It’s challenging, but most people share the same values and want the same things – so when I see millions of people joining these campaigns, it’s hard not to feel hopeful.

CURRENT FAVORITE LOCAL SPOT? Visiting Joe at Highland Fried.

WHAT DO YOU DO FOR AVAAZ? We are a global civic movement with over 46 million subscribers worldwide.

We work on a range of issues like

GUILTY PLEASURE? Some people have a weakness for chocolate – mine is French fries. But they gotta be crispy – no crisp, no love.

INDUSTRY-LAB.COM 288 NORFOLK ST. CAMBRIDGE

See yourself at Industry Lab, Cambridge’s uniquely flexible, neighborly co-working space?

Drop us a line at hi@industry-lab.com.

Just another way we reward our members.

Smart Money Rewards — membership is automatic upon qualification, and there are NO fees.

Benefits include:  ATM surcharge reimbursement  Rate discounts on new Consumer Loans  Rate increases on Share Certificates and

IRA Share Certificates

Learn more at

mitfcu.org/smRewards

SMART MONEY REWARDS Insured by NCUA scoutcambridge.com | Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers 41

CALENDAR

EVERY WEDNESDAY

Photo courtesy of CambridgeSide.

| FITNESS

FIT + FABULOUS OUTDOOR SERIES 5:30 p.m., Free CambridgeSide - 100 Cambridgeside Pl., Cambridge One of the many highlights of summer is free, outdoor fitness classes, and CambridgeSide has enough to have you covered. The classes switch up every week, but offerings include kickboxing, dance, zumba, and more.

EVERY SATURDAY IN JULY

Photo by Andrea Savino.

Photo courtesy of Assembly Row.

JULY 14 Photo courtesy of the Somerville Arts Council.

JULY 29

| MUSIC

CAMBRIDGE JAZZ FESTIVAL 12 to 6 p.m., Free for grass seating, $25 for seats Danehy Park - 99 Sherman St, Cambridge What’s better than music in a park? The Cambridge Jazz Festival, now in its fifth year, will feature Terri Lyne Carrington and will offer up face painting, food trucks, and even a jazz museum.

AUGUST 1

| FOOD & DRINK

Photo by Kyle Klein.

| FOOD & DRINK

CHAR & BAR WARS 5 p.m., $55 91 Sidney St., Cambridge Last year’s inaugural Char & Bar Wars was such a success that the Chamber of Commerce is once again asking you to judge who has the best cocktail and burger in the city. A ticket to the event will get you up to seven drink samples and as many slider-sized burgers as you can stomach.

| ART

ARTBEAT 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., Free Davis Square, Somerville “Flip” is the theme of this year’s ArtBeat, the annual art festival that shuts down Davis Square. The arts council is taking “flip” both literally and figuratively, and will toy with point of view while being a “celebration of all things upside down, backwards, and sideways.” ArtBeat will offer up music, dance performances, food, activities, and 75 craft vendors.

JULY 20

Photo by Evgenia Eliseevas.

| FITNESS

ASSEMBLY ROW BAR STARS 6 p.m., $20 in advance Assembly Row, Somerville Assembly Row is asking for your help to answer one question: Which restaurant in the neighborhood makes the best cocktails? Your ticket gets you samples of drinks from at least a dozen Assembly Row spots, “small bites,” and one vote for your favorite drink.

| FOOD & DRINKS

BURGERS & BLOOMS 6:30 p.m., $65 Boston Burger Company, 1105 Mass. Ave., Cambridge Alice’s Table aims to create events that are “the bright spot in the modern busy woman’s life.”

This Burgers & Blooms event will include flower arranging, cocktails, and burgers.

YOGA IN THE BEER GARDEN 10 a.m., $10 Remnant Brewing - 2 Bow Market Way, Somerville Pairing beer with your workout has gotten quite popular, and luckily you don’t have to go far for the opportunity. Bow Market’s Remnant Brewing has yoga in its beer garden every Saturday morning in July, with core-focused Vinyasa classes taught by CorePower Yoga’s Andrea Savino.

JULY 12

JULY 24

AUGUST 5

Photo by Nina Eichner.

| DANCE

RESIST(D)ANCE: UNDER CONSTRUCTION 9 p.m., $20 OBERON - 16 Arrow St., Cambridge Part performance, part party, RESIST(D)ANCE: UNDER CONSTRUCTION is a chance for “all creative leaders, change makers, and body shakers to reclaim space and re-imagine a future where young people have an active role in shaping their cities,” the event description says. People interested in making all kinds of art, from poetry to dance to visual art, are encouraged to join the event, which will underline “the importance of social dance in black communities.”

42 Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers | scoutcambridge.com

AUGUST 18 Photo courtesy of Meredith Reiches.

| FESTIVAL

SEIZE THE SUMMER 2 to 6 p.m., Free Davis Square, Somerville The third SomerStreets event of the year will shut down Holland Avenue between Davis Square and Teele Square. Last year’s Seize the Summer festival included live music, a beer garden, water balloon dodgeball, and a 90-foot water slide.

| ART

SOMER FEST 12 to 5 p.m., $10 ArtFarm - 10 Poplar St., Somerville Comedy, music, and magic? The first iteration of the 21+ event, which its organizers plan on making annual, will feature Oompa, Nonye Brown-West, Zoë Reiches, and more. Plus, it’s a fundraiser: profits from Somer Fest will go to the New Life International Orphanage.

Come in as a customer

2011 Honda CR-V AWD EX-L 4dr SUV $13,995

, leave as a friend.

2012 Volkswagen Jetta SE PZEV 4dr Sedan 6A 25,00 miles $10,995

2011 Toyota RAV4 4x4 4dr SUV V6 47,000 miles $12,995

2015 Mercedes-Benz M-Class AWD ML 350 4MATIC 4dr SUV $24,995

2014 Toyota Camry XLE 4dr Sedan 54,000 miles

Call John directly on his cell at

617-512-5511

181 Somerville Ave (across from Target)

johnsautosales.com

QUALITY USED CARS BOUGHT AND SOLD FOR 40 YEARS

AUTHENTIC, HOMEMADE, CENTRAL MEXICAN CUISINE

THIS POLL STINKS OF GERRYMANDERING

Best Latin American Food

Our patio is open and we have a private party room upstairs.

Yes! We can cater your event.

Best Liquor Store JOSE PARK’S FREE ING!

617-354-0335 • JOSESMEX.COM 131 SHERMAN ST., CAMBRIDGE

BELL

IS CIR

We deliver through the Drizly App! NO PANTS REQUIRED!

SHERMAN ST.

15 MCGRATH HIGHWAY, SOMERVILLE 233 ALEWIFE BROOK PARKWAY, CAMBRIDGE 2153 MYSTIC VALLEY PARKWAY, MEDFORD 48 BROADWAY, MALDEN

BOLT

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scoutcambridge.com | Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers 43

RESTAURANT DIRECTORY Please consider shopping with these and other Scout sponsors.

THE DARK HORSE PUBLIC HOUSE

LEONE’S SUB AND PIZZA

EBI SUSHI

MIKE’S FOOD & SPIRITS

499 Broadway, Somerville 617-629-5302, thedarkhorsepub.com Your friendly, neighborhood pub... with great food.

292 Broadway, Somerville 617-776-2511, leonessubandpizza.com Pizza and subs fit for a king since 1954. Now being delivered by Dash!

OPA GREEK YEEROS

378 Highland Ave., Somerville 617-718-2900, opayeeros.com Authentic Greek cuisine and a lively atmosphere. Expanding soon!

MASS AVE DINER

290 Somerville Ave., Somerville 617-764-5556, ebisushi.com Japanese restaurant serving an extensive menu of sushi and other favorites in informal environs.

9 Davis Square, Somerville 617-628-2379, mikesondavis.com Pizza, Pasta, Seafood, Burgers and more! Dine in our casual dining room open to Davis Square or watch a game at the bar!

JOSE’S MEXICAN RESTAURANT

MIX-IT RESTAURANT

ZUZU RESTAURANT

LA POSADA RESTAURANT

OLDE MAGOUN’S SALOON

TACO PARTY

131 Sherman St., Cambridge 617-354-0335, josesmex.com Authentic, homemade, Central Mexican Cuisine. Patio, private party room and full bar. Catering also available.

505 Medford St., Somerville 617-776-2049, laposadasomerville.com Somerville’s spot for delicious, hand-crafted Latin American cuisine.

1678 Mass. Ave., Cambridge 617-547-0212, mixitrestaurant.com Unique selection of traditional Asian specialties from sushi to noodles and grilled dishes.

518 Medford St., Somerville magounssaloon.com, 617-776-2600 Local bar featuring 28 lines of craft beer, cask ale and delicious food.

R U O Y R O F U O Y Y A P L WE’L

!

S O T O H P N O I T VACA ENTER and WIN our Summer photo contest.

See details page 46.

44 Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers | scoutcambridge.com

906 Mass. Ave., Cambridge 617-864-5301, massavediner.com Since 2010 Serving Killer Brunch and Diner Fare. Now Open Late and Serving Craft Beer and Wine!

474 Mass. Ave., Cambridge 617-864-3278 mideastoffers.com/zuzu Serving Mama Sater’s recipes for more than 40 years.

711 Broadway, Somerville 617-764-0683, tacopartytruck.com Building tacos from the ground up.

HEALTH & WELLNESS DIRECTORY

LOCAL SHOPPING DIRECTORY

REVOLUTIONARY CLINICS

TEAM JEN & LYNN

MAGPIE

67 Broadway, Somerville 617-213-6006, revolutionaryclinics.org Professional, well-respected medical marijuana clinic offering natural solutions to a wide variety of illnesses and chronic conditions.

DR. KATIE TALMO, D.M.D.

416 Highland Ave., Somerville

Thalia Tringo & Associates Real Estate Lynn 617-216-5244, Jen 617-943-9581

617-623-3330, magpie-store.com

TeamJenandLynn@ThaliaTringoRealEstate.com

Unique jewelry, apothecary, art, edibles, housewares and more!

Bringing our expertise and good humor to help you find a perfect home or say good-bye to your old one.

CHARLES CHERNEY TEAM AT COMPASS REAL ESTATE

MAGPIE KIDS

180 Highland Ave., Somerville 617-864-6111 Dr. Talmo provides a personalize approach to dental care. Come enjoy a comfortable dental experience in her newly renovated office space.

95 Elm St., Somerville 617-764-4110, magpiekids.com Modern gifts for modern kids.

Clothes, toys, books and more!

SOMERVILLE FAMILY PRACTICE

1020 Broadway, Somerville 617-628-2160 somervillefamilypractice.net Now accepting new patients.

REAL ESTATE DIRECTORY

617-733-8937 CambridgeRealEstate.com SomervilleRealEstate.com Making your next move a reality.

IRENE BREMIS THE IBREMIS TEAM

DAVIS SQUARED

Prices are already up quite a bit over 2013, which was the strongest market in years. More inventory has started to appear, but it is still not enough to satisfy demand. Consequently, prices should continue to rise in 2014.

Our New Listings

409 Highland Ave., Somerville 617-666-6700, davissquared.com Please call us for moregifts information the market, Fun, modern foronhim, her, or to get a sense of the current value of your home.

Todd, Niké, Jennifer, and Lynn house ~Thalia, and baby.

617-905-5232, irenebremis.com irenebremis@gmail.com Real Estate Consulting, Listing, Marketing, Sales & Rental Specialist.

~ $1,495,000

BE. IN UNION YOGA

440 Somerville Ave., Somerville 617-623-9642, beinunion.com Empowering classes, workshops, trainings and retreats helping you build a practice to fuel your life.

This is a very rare opportunity to own a single family home with garage on one of the largest lots in Davis Square . The Victorian-era house has 4 bedrooms and one and a half baths on two levels. The detached garage

PORTER SQUARE BOOKS

25 White St., Cambridge 617-491-2220, portersquarebooks.com ~ $519,000 Lovely Agassiz 2 bedroom/2 bath condo with private porch on a pleasant side street between Porter Square Books is your fiercely Harvard and Porter Squares. Near great shops, restaurants, and Harvard campus. independent source for great books, ~ $349,000 Roomy Ten Hills 2 bedroom/1 bath condo with charming details, reonvated kitchen, parking, and storage. magazines, fun gifts and more. the Morrison Ave. and Grove St., is the very large, open, level yard. Owned by the same family since 1955, this unspoiled home is ready for a new family to make their own updates and memories.

Jennifer Rose

Residential Sales Specialist, ealtor R ® cell/text Jennifer@ThaliaTringoRe alEstate .com

Lynn C. Gr aham

Residential Sales Specialist, ealtor R ® cell/text Lynn@ThaliaTringoRe alEstate .com

LIZ & ELLIE REAL ESTATE AT COMPASS 617-444-9644 lizandellie.com Your Life. Our Expertise.

Together, let’s find a home.

~ $229,000 Near Medford Sq., this 1 bedroom/ 1 1/2 bath condo is in an elevator building with parking.

Coming Soon

?

E V O L U O Y O D O WH In the heart of Davis Sq., this 2 bedroom/1 bath condo in a brick building has a parking space.

Equidistant from Davis and Porter Squares, this 3 bedroom/1.5 bath condo on two levels has in-unit laundry, 2 porches, private yard, and exclusive driveway for 3 cars.

Renovated 1 bedroom/1 bath near Prospect Hill with central air, in-unit laundry, private porch, and shared yard.

We want to know your Cambridge favorites for the 2018 Scout’s Honored Awards.

THALIA TRINGO & ASSOCIATES REAL ESTATE

617-616-5091, thaliatringorealestate.com

Our agents strive to make your experience of buying and selling as smooth as possible. From start to finish, we are here to help you. Free classes.

See details page 38.

scoutcambridge.com | Do-Gooders, Key Players & Game Changers 45

PHOTO CONTESTS

ENTER & WIN! SUMMER PHOTO CONTEST Sponsored by Irving House and Harding House

Wherever your travels take you this summer, be sure to take your Scout along! Take a photo with Scout on your vacation and at the end of the summer we’ll highlight the farthest trip, the most creative photo, and the funniest submission.

HOW IT WORKS: 1. Take a picture with a copy of Scout on your summer vacation.

2. Post the picture on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter and be sure to tag us (or you can email the photo to scout@scoutmagazines.com).

3. We’ll pick three winners to be printed in our Scout’s Honored issue (out in September) and to win a $50 prize plus a night at the Harding House or Irving House!

CHARMING COMFORT, CAMBRIDGE CONVENIENCE

FRIENDLY ACCOMMODATIONS IN THE HEART OF CAMBRIDGE SINCE 1945

We are available 8 am to 10 pm daily at 617-876-2888 to answer questions and help with reservations.

We are available 24 hours a day at 617-547-4600 to answer questions and help with reservations.

www.harding-house.com • Breakfast buffet with a daily home-cooked special • All day coffee, tea, snacks

www.irvinghouse.com • Internet – Guest computer/printer • TV – Free Local Phone Calls

• Limited Off-street Parking FREE with DIRECT BOOKING • Convenient Cambridge location

• Guest fridge & microwave in dining room • Non-smoking

W.E. is nominated for Best Bartender (Zach Hirtz) & Best Brunch We would be incredibly honored if you voted for us if you love what you have experienced. If you have not visited us yet, we would welcome you with open arms and hope you give us the opportunity to show you the pride we put into everything we are about!

WIT’S END 1248 Cambridge Street Cambridge, MA @ the corner of Cambridge & Prospect for reservations: www.witsendbar.com or call (857) 259-6168

HANDCRAFTED COCKTAILS & A TRULY UNIQUE BEER PROGRAM

ELEVATED PUB FARE THAT BEGS TO BE SHARED

A BRUNCH THAT STANDS ALONE ON STYLE, FLAIR, ORIGINALITY & ADDITIVE DISHES

WIN DINNER FOR 4 BY TELLING THE US ONLY ARTIST ON THE BORDER OF THIS AD THAT WE HAVE NOT NAMED A DRINK AFTER ON OUR DINNER OR BRUNCH MENUS the first 3 people to correctly answer will win by emailing jayson@witsendbar.com

Medical cannabis comes to Fresh Pond.

Rev Clinics is pleased to announce the opening of our first Cambridge location at 110 Fawcett Street. Now patients can connect to the people, products and experience they’re looking for without having to go far from home.

New Patient Offer: $200 worth of free product $200 BOGO for any new patient to Revolutionary Clinics. Get $400 worth of

s i b a n n Ca e n The

product and pay $200. You can use it all at

e u Q

once or break it up into as many as four visits.

Lauren, Patient Advocate

110 FAWCETT ST, CAMBRIDGE 67 BROADWAY, SOMERVILLE FREE PARKING YOUR SOURCE FOR HIGH QUALITY MEDICAL MARIJUANA PRODUCTS

REVOLUTIONARYCLINICS.ORG