Jamaica Plain Authors/Illustrators Honored at State House

Mass Center for the Book recently hosted winners of three years of Massachusetts Book Awards winners at the State House last week (January 18). On Jan. 18, Jamaica Plain residents Ethan and Vita Murrow, were honored for their 2021 Mass Book Award Honors in the Picture Book category for Zero Local: Next Stop: Kindness. The Massachusetts Book Awards recognize significant works of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, translated literature, and children’s/young adult literature written, illustrated, or translated by current Massachusetts residents.

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Theme: A Jamaica Plain Resident Created JP Improv…

Around the neighborhood you may have seen flyers advertising JP Improv. Wanting to know more, Jamaica Plain News asked Jamaica Plain resident Myles McDonough scripted questions in which he provided prepared answers. Q: Why did you want to create JP Improv? McDonough: I'd previously taught improv while at graduate school in Knoxville, TN, and I missed the community that grew up around that troupe. In addition, I saw that there weren't many nearby opportunities for people to try improv, and wanted to fix that.

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Jamaica Plain’s Hutzler Stars in CCT’s ‘I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change!’

Just in time for Valentine's Day, Jamaica Plain resident Jay Hutzler is starring in the Curtain Call Theatre's I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change!. The musical comedy is about ",,,everything you’ve ever secretly thought about dating, romance, marriage, lovers, husbands, wives, and in-laws, but were afraid to admit." The musical stars and is being led by locals. Dorchester's David Costa (Dorchester) is directing and choreographing, and music directed by Roslindale's Dan Moore. This production stars actors Chinatown's Bowen Huang, Malden's Stephanie Charlton, Hutzler, and Needham's Michael Herschberg. 
Book and lyrics are by Joe DiPietro and music by Jimmy Roberts, will be performed February 10-19.

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MassNAELA Honors Jamaica Plain’s Hahn for His Advocacy of Seniors’ Legal Rights

The Massachusetts Chapter of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys (MassNAELA) honored several individuals for their advocacy of elder services and their commitment to raising awareness of legal issues affecting seniors during its annual meeting including Jamaica Plain's C. Alex Hahn. Held on Dec. 8, the John J. Ford Litigation Advocacy Award, which honors a member’s efforts to educate the chapter membership relative to litigation strategies, was bestowed to C. Alex Hahn, for his dedicated efforts with drafting amicus briefs in appellate cases that pertain to elder law issues.

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The Food Project Welcomes Jamaica Plain’s Jeff Wojtowicz to Board of Trustees

The Food Project welcomed Jamaica Plain resident Jeff Wojtowicz, a retired biopharma senior executive, to its Board of Trustees. The Food Project is a nationally recognized youth development model that employs teens to work alongside adults and strengthen local food systems.

Growing up outside of Chicago, Wojtowicz remembers consuming many canned vegetables. After he met his wife, whose family owns a farm in southern Illinois, he was exposed to more fresh vegetables with their enhanced flavor and nutrition. He first joined The Food Project as a member of the nonprofit’s development committee in 2018, helping to promote and execute the organization’s annual gala. This provided his first taste for how The Food Project works to build the next generation of leaders who will transform local food systems.

Bringing more than three decades of leadership, strategy, and project management experience to the Board, Wojtowicz looks forward to generating awareness about the power of disease prevention through greater access to nutrition.

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JP’s Michele Courton Brown Appointed Chair of YouthBuild USA Board of Directors

Jamaica Plain resident Michele Courton Brown has been named chair of the YouthBuild USA Board of Directors, making her the third person in the global nonprofit’s history to take the role, as well as the first woman and the first Black woman to lead the body. This appointment creates a diverse, majority-female Board leadership — a first in its history — and advances the organization’s commitment to its mission by better reflecting the diverse population it serves.

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91 Year-Old Longtime Community Activist is Stable After Attack in Franklin Park

Longtime community activist and Franklin Park Coalition member Jean McGuire was in the hospital and stable after being attacked while walking her dogs in Franklin Park. She was attacked on Oct. 11 around 8:30 pm and was found unconscious near White Stadium along Playstead Road near the Bear Dens and Long Crouch Woods by Boston Police. She had been stabbed several times, according to a Boston Police Facebook post.  She was attacked by an unknown suspect(s), and was transported to a hospital and treated for non-life threatening injuries. McGuire, 91, has walked her dog safely and night for decades, according to an email by Rickie Thompson, President of the Franklin Park Coalition board of directors

"Jean, plucky as ever, fought off her attacker.

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Jamaica Plain Cellist Project Debuts 8 New Solo Pieces by Immigrant and First-Generation American Composers

Jamaica Plain cellist Leo Eguchi's new solo project Unaccompanied features immigrant and first-generation American composers telling their own personal journeys of America. Unaccompanied features eight new short solos commissioned and performed by Eguchi, which echo his experience as a first-generation Japanese-American growing up in the Midwest. The show features world premieres by composers with backgrounds from the Middle East, Latin America and Asia, and each piece will be introduced by a short film about the composers and stories of their lives in America. “My young life in a small town was a split-screen existence. The experience was very different depending on whether I was out in public with the white or the Japanese side of my family,” said Eguchi.

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Jamaica Plain’s Kordenbrock Named New Executive Director of Rehearsal for Life

Rehearsal for Life, a nonprofit in Boston-area’s creative youth development sector, recently hired Jamaica Plain resident Robert Kordenbrock as its new executive director. Kordenbrock joins Rehearsal for Life, as it begins its 30th anniversary, having most recently been the executive director of the Fenway Community Center, which serves over 45,000 residents of the Fenway neighborhood. His career spans nearly two decades of experience in the education and non-profit sectors with a focus on youth development and corporate social responsibility. He has served as a teacher in the Chicago Public Schools; an AmeriCorps National Teaching Fellow with Citizen Schools in Malden where he worked with 8th graders to support their social-emotional and academic development; Director of the Red Oak After School and Summer Programs at the Josiah Quincy Elementary School for the Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center; and interim Executive Director and a member of the Board of Directors at JP KidsArts. He then shifted his focus to nonprofit capacity building and volunteer engagement with a director role at Building Impact and a leadership role Common Impact.

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Jamaica Plain’s Marshall on Switching Careers from Teaching to Reiki, and Drawing Educational Cartoons

Jamaica Plain's Lillie Marshall taught in Boston Public Schools for more than 18 years, teaching English at Charlestown High and Boston Latin Academy, and recently made a full career transition to helping people through Reiki and her cartoon drawings. Marshall answered questions about her two distinctly different businesses and what inspired her to follow a new career path. Q: Why did you decide to pivot careers and open a Reiki healing touch practice on Burroughs Street? Marshall: Teaching is an absolutely amazing job, and I am deeply thankful for having had the honor of working with Boston’s young people. However, the pandemic made me reflect on dreams that I’d kept deferring, and made it clear that the time is NOW to go for it.

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