By Nathan Metcalf, Special to the Reporter
Three Dorchester residents will be recognized this week as recipients of a Henry L. Shattuck Award, one of Boston’s highest honors for public service.
Each year, the Shattuck Public Service Awards, administered by the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, a non-partisan fiscal watchdog, celebrate a cohort of City of Boston employees whose work has strengthened the city and two Shattuck City Champions, one nonprofit leader and one private-sector notable.
This year’s honorees include Dorchester residents Jeffrey Alkins of the Mayor’s Office of Housing; Taylor McCoy, an inclusion specialist at Mattahunt Elementary School; and Bill Kennedy, a longtime civic leader and partner at Nutter, McClennen & Fish LLP, who received the Shattuck City Champion Award.
For Steve Poftak, president and CEO of the Research Bureau, this 40th awards ceremony —set for Thursday evening— presents an opportunity to highlight individuals whose contributions are “incredibly inspiring” and often overlooked.
“I’ve had the opportunity to meet them and be incredibly impressed with their deep understanding of the needs of the residents that they serve,” Poftak said. In a polarized time when public servants often go unappreciated, he added, “everyone who gets the Shattuck award represents the very best in commitment to the public.”
Kara Buckley, who co-chairs the selection committee, said the panel looks for city employees and leaders whose work reflects the values embodied by Henry L. Shattuck, a Boston city councillor and state legislator, civic leader, Harvard treasurer and interim president, and chair of the Boston Municipal Research Bureau in the first half of the 20th century.
“He was someone who was highly dedicated to public service — a great, quiet leader and a humble man,” she said. “That’s what we look for when we go through these nominations: tremendous character, tremendous service, tremendous impact on the city and the world around them.”
•For Jeff Alkins, the Shattuck Public Service Award recognizes more than two decades of work helping residents purchase their first homes and hold onto the homes they already have. A program manager with the Boston Home Center, Alkins provides foreclosure-prevention advocacy, technical assistance, and guidance on everything from mortgages to emergency repairs.
“It was completely by surprise, and it was definitely a humbling honor,” said Alkins, who grew up in Dorchester and has spent most of his life living in neighborhoods from Blue Hill Avenue to Four Corners to Lower Mills. His work, he said, is rooted in values he learned as one of nine children. “Growing up in a large family was about stability in your neighborhoods,” he said. “I’ve always been a strong community person.”
His work also centers on seniors, through the city’s Age Strong initiative. He helps connect them to fuel assistance, tax abatements, and emergency home-repair programs so they don’t have to choose, as he put it, “Do I pay my bill, or do I buy groceries this month?”
For Alkins, his work comes down to a straightforward philosophy: “You start small. You take your village, which is what Dorchester is — my village — and… we make this city a better place from one end to the other.”
• For Taylor McCoy, an inclusion specialist at Mattahunt Elementary School, the award also came as a shock. “I actually wasn’t aware that I was nominated,” she said. “It felt both surreal and humbling.”
McCoy spent eight years teaching in substantially separate kindergarten classrooms at Mattahunt before moving into her current role three years ago. Now, she works to help students with specialized learning and behavioral needs transition from more restrictive settings into inclusive classrooms where they can learn alongside their peers.
“In this role, I work tirelessly — or I try to work tirelessly — to move students from the most restrictive setting to the least restrictive setting,” she said.
Much of McCoy’s commitment comes from her own experiences growing up. She struggled with letter reversals as a child and remembers the teachers who helped her. “I had such great teachers… it just kind of really stuck with me,” she said.
As a Dorchester native, McCoy said the award carries added meaning. “It’s nice to work in the community where I grew up and have lived my whole life.”
Mattahunt serves a large multilingual student population and hosts the nation’s first Haitian Creole dual-language program. Many students face challenges outside school as well. “Just making sure they know when they come to school, they’re loved, they’re welcomed, that we are here for them — that’s been pretty heartbreaking but also rewarding,” she said.
• For Bill Kennedy, a partner at Nutter McClennen & Fish LLP — the Boston law firm where he co-chairs the public policy group — and the lone recipient from the business community honored this year, the Shattuck City Champion Award recognizes decades of service to Boston’s civic and charitable institutions.
“For my peers to think that I am worthy of the City Champion Award is very flattering and humbling for me, and it means a great deal,” Kennedy said.
His public service career stretches across four decades. Born and raised in Dorchester’s Meetinghouse Hill neighborhood, he went from Suffolk University Law School to state government, serving as chief of staff and chief legal counsel to former House Speaker Thomas Finneran and to the House Ways and Means Committee. He later worked as an attorney for the Executive Council and as an assistant clerk at the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.
He also spent more than 20 years involved with the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, including a decade as chair or co-chair of the Shattuck Awards dinner, the annual event that celebrates its recipients.
Kennedy’s civic commitments run deep. He has long supported organizations such as Pine Street Inn, Boston Health Care for the Homeless, Catholic Charities, and St. John Paul II Catholic Academy.
Across all those roles, Kennedy said, he has tried to carry forward an ethic that has shaped his work: “Life is a team sport. We can’t do it alone. We need each other.”
Other honorees at the Shattuck Awards include Elisabeth Jackson, CEO of Bridge Over Troubled Waters; John Connors, court coordinator for the city’s Inspectional Services Department’s Legal Division; Mari McCullough, special library assistant at the North End branch of the Boston Public Library; Elsie Morantus Petion, nurse manager at the Boston Public Health Commission; Sgt. Peter Moscaritolo, supervisor at the Boston Police Department’s Street Outreach Unit; Alexa Pinard, assistant Deputy Director of Design Review at the Boston Planning Department; and Eric Prentis, principal administrative assistant at the Public Works Department.
This story is part of a partnership between the Dorchester Reporter and the Boston University Department of Journalism.
