Letter to the Editor

NSC Open Letter

Dear Editor

What a difference a month makes.  First and foremost, as you read this, I hope that you are safe and well, and adjusting to life and a new normal under the stay-at-home orders.  I wanted to write to our readers to say how much all of us at the ABCD North End/West End Neighborhood Service Center (NE/WE NSC) truly miss our clients, volunteers, friends and colleagues around the neighborhood, not to mention the day-to-day interaction with staff at our site and our ABCD Central offices. 

The NE/WE NSC remains closed at present, so I am sharing again with this correspondence the listing of all ABCD open sites. In the meantime, we continue to conduct wellness checks and referrals for our clientele.  We have been in touch with our donors, community partners, and other stakeholders, and remain grateful for their support and collaboration. ABCD’s website bostonabcd.org also has updated information regarding services during this time. 

We hope to have more updates in the future, but our goal is to work towards reopening our site when it is safe to do so, and coordinating responsive services, especially around the needs for meals, food pantry services, and human interaction.  We plan to be transparent throughout this process and are proactively taking every necessary precaution to maintain a safe center for seniors, staff, volunteers, and visitors. 

For those who celebrate, I send joyous Passover and warm Easter greetings, and best wishes for a time to connect (virtually!) with family. 

None of this is easy, and like all of us, I hope for better days ahead.   Boston is a strong, resilient city, and our neighborhoods brim with stories for those who remember times of war, conflict, the Great Depression, recessions, the threat of polio and scarlet fever, and more.   We survived those and will get through this better and stronger for it.  We are all in this together.

Maria Stella GullaDirector ABCD North End/West End Neighborhood Service Center