In the oppressive heat, fear, food, and hope collide on Broadway in Chelsea
People are patient but not happy, because it's hot as hell. The numbers on their wrists to hold their place in line start to smear.
The heart of Chelsea's main street is torn up by construction. In some respects, their lives have been torn apart by the one-two punch of hunger and fear of federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
Inside the storefront church, a fan whirs as a dozen volunteers scurry about packing up food. The church chairs have all been removed and boxes filled with food cover much of the floor.
Volunteer Marilea Mendonca helps prepare 400 boxes of groceries for those in line.
Stan Grossfeld/Globe Staff
Advertisement
The need is great, the mood intense, despite the sign on the wall. 'Worry about nothing. Pray about everything.' Philippians 4:6
Elian Mora, 1, naps in line with her mom, who came from El Salvador.
Stan Grossfeld/Globe Staff
'This is a social pandemic,' says Pastor Elaine Mendes, director of Revival Chelsea. She waits until the last moment to add refrigerated items like milk and eggs to the 30-pound boxes.
'It's poor people. It's needy people.'
Most are people of color.
The diversity is evident in the line, which is now so long, the end is not visible. There's a Moroccan woman with a child, an Asian woman wearing a mask, a senior citizen holding extra plastic bags, and a Hispanic woman stoically standing.
Advertisement
'This is a social pandemic,' says Pastor Elaine Mendes, director of Revival Chelsea, who adds milk to the boxes of food ready to be distributed.
Stan Grossfeld/Globe Staff
Many hide their faces or turn around when a camera is pointed at them. One man flicked his hand like he was shooing a fly.
They are in no mood to talk.
'They think you are ICE,' says Mendes, who has been operating the food pantry for 10 years.
Mendes worries that proposed
federal budget cuts will make the situation worse.
'Everything that I can see since January, it's for the wealthy people, for the rich people.'
A United Nations of diversity is found on Broadway in Chelsea as people line up for the weekly food pantry distribution.
Stan Grossfeld/Globe Staff
She refuses to mention the president's name. 'It's the administration,' she says. 'I don't think this administration is looking out for the low-income people right now.'
The food is donated mainly from 'Food For Free,' a nonprofit in Somerville. It's the good stuff from Trader Joe's, Amazon Fresh, and Whole Foods. Not the canned beef and vegetable government surplus variety, or the cheap ramen, or starchy mac and cheese.
Revival Chelsea sometimes supplements the groceries by buying milk when it can afford the expense.
There are three major food banks in Chelsea.
'It is not enough,' Mendes says.
Residents jam the streets for the weekly food pantry at the Revival International Center, a community church that distributes food boxes to those in need in the Chelsea area.
Stan Grossfeld/Globe Staff
According to a new report by Mass General Brigham and t
'Very low food insecurity — the most severe form, occurring when an individual must skip meals or not eat for the entire day because they don't have enough money for food — has nearly quadrupled to 24 percent in 2024 from 6 percent in 2019, pointing to widening socioeconomic gaps,' the report says.
Mendes's worst nightmare is that ICE will just pull up and start grabbing people.
Advertisement
She
says that ICE collaborators have intimidated those waiting in line here on two different occasions. (They also tried to attend an English as a second language class held here, Mendes says.)
Hundreds of people line up in the hopes of receiving one of the 400 food boxes distributed by the Revival International Center.
Stan Grossfeld
'They didn't come to talk. They didn't say nothing. They came to scare the population and make people afraid. It worked. We had a lot of food left over because people were afraid.'
Here, Mendes offers anonymity.
'We don't take their name. We don't take nothing.'
The center also hosts numerous social and educational activities, like community gatherings for men and for the homeless, and yoga classes. There's even a climate change seminar.
Once people have received their groceries, some mix and match, sharing what they've received with each other on Broadway in Chelsea.
Stan Grossfeld
'Food pantry is my main program but then through the week, I can offer all the programs to make them feel comfortable and feel happy,' says Mendes. 'I think the presence of ICE on the street breaks this peaceful way that we have. ... I mean, they are messing up our job.'
At 3 p.m., volunteers push the boxes on a roller conveyor and open the door. They distribute the boxes one by one. They keep pastries up at the front to reward kids who have waited patiently
in line.
Volunteers unload two truckloads and a van full of food to feed the poor in Chelsea.
Stan Grossfeld/Globe Staff
On this Monday,
465 people (not counting children) show up and make sure they don't block the other merchants' doorways.
Once they get their groceries, some linger on the sidewalk and make trades. A vegetarian will trade hamburger meat for fruit and vegetables.
Others leave disappointed,
because the food runs out.
'It's horrible that we couldn't feed everybody,' Mendes says. Mendes scrambles inside to the multiple refrigerators and finds a dozen eggs for each of the last 65 people.
Advertisement
She scoffs at the racial trope that unfairly portrays immigrants as dangerous.
A woman leaves Revival Chelsea with a boxful of fresh food after waiting three hours in the summer heat.
Stan Grossfeld/Globe Staff
'We have mothers, we have children. We don't have any criminals in the line. I don't think a criminal would wait three hours in the heat or in the snow.'
'No, it's poor people,' she continues. 'I'm going to help these people. And I think everyone should do the same thing. We should help each other. We should protect each other because one day we're all going to need each other.'
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Los Angeles Times
18 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
Saratoga High ‘almost-alumnus,' Mike Young, proves there are many pathways to success
His hands tell his story: worn, calloused, and etched with decades of labor spent sculpting the landscapes of the Silicon Valley elite. Each scar bears witness to the artistry and toil behind the manicured landscapes he has tended. Those hands belong to Michael Young, 58, who dropped out of school his senior year, 1984, and never graduated high school. He spent the next decade working to discover his passion, landscape design, and eventually made a highly successful business out of it. He returned to school in September 2024 with dozens of his former classmates for his 40-year reunion. Looking back, he described himself as a struggling, aimless teenager who wanted to chase his wildest dreams outside of the classroom. Now retired and financially successful, Young once spent his days doing backbreaking labor under the relentless California sun, planting, pruning, and perfecting the outdoor spaces of his clients. Young spent his life working for some of the valley's most influential people, and his journey to get there was far from ordinary. Young struggles in Saratoga amid intense academic pressure Young, born in Santa Clara in 1966, grew up in the heart of Saratoga along Highway 9. He attended Oak Street Elementary, now Saratoga Elementary School, Redwood Middle School, and Saratoga High School. His first exposure to agriculture was in his childhood home's massive garden and surrounding orchards, where he learned to live with nature. As a child, he also participated in a Saratoga Union School District program called 'Enrichment,' which exposed local youth to the outdoors, arts, and music, developing his love for the subjects. Saratoga was a drastically different town during Young's upbringing. Compared to its current population, where just 37.8% of residents are white, the Saratoga of the '80s was predominantly white; at that time, 94.4% of residents were Caucasian, while only 4.6% were Asian. Rather than working primarily in tech-focused industries, as they do now, residents more often held jobs in agriculture or owned and ran small businesses. Still, even during the '80s, SHS was an academically focused school characterized by scholastic achievement. Study halls were spent rushing through English homework, and lunches were reserved for last-minute cramming of Spanish verb conjugations. Yet, for some students, including Young, the academic fever never took hold. Often labeled 'rebels' or 'troublemakers' by teachers and parents, Young and his group of friends took a less conventional approach through high school. Young's ideal future strayed from the path so prevalent in this community — rather than pursuing a college degree, he envisioned himself backpacking around the world. Feeling the extreme academic pressure of SHS, he often considered transferring to Los Gatos High, which offered more vocational classes like automotive mechanics and woodshop. Unfortunately, his repeated attempts to change schools were blocked by the administrators for reasons still unknown to him, leaving him trapped and struggling to stay afloat at SHS. 'I hated high school,' Young said. 'I didn't fit in socially or academically, and, though Saratoga is an ideal community, I couldn't enjoy it.' By the time his senior year came around, Young was hardly attending school and failing all his classes. He ended up falling so far behind that he had to retake Algebra. Twice. Finally, he had to ask himself: 'Why be here?' After years of trying and failing to force himself into the mold of the 'Saratoga student,' he chose to forge his own path. He decided to drop out, giving himself the room to grow and pursue the passions he held outside of the classroom. 'There was this total frustration with not being able to get what I wanted out of life at school, and realizing that time had run short,' Young said. 'I would rather be in Australia chasing a dream than sitting through math in Saratoga trying to fit in.' His decision to leave school was met with both judgment and concern from his family and friends. He had no concrete plans for his future and no knowledge of what came next. Nothing except for a vague dream that he was willing to chase halfway across the world. And so he did. 'If you listen to all the noise, you're never going to find yourself. You have to decide: '[My dreams] are important to me, and they're so important to me that I'm going to act on them,'' Young said. Young explores passions in Oceania After the abrupt end to his high school career, Young decided to take his chance to experience life outside of Saratoga. He took a few years to explore, bouncing between different community colleges and living abroad. He spent a year each in New Zealand and Australia working on farms and furthering his interest in the environment by 'going back to the land,' he said. While he was there, he also visited the Great Barrier Reef and other natural wonders in Oceania, helping to further ignite his passion for the environment. He financed his adventures through farm work, jobs at nature reserves, and careful budgeting. During his time untethered to societal standards, Young experienced paralyzing doubt about his future. 'I remember waking in New Zealand on a beach, just going: 'What am I doing with my life? What am I doing on this beach? Everybody else is in class; where is this going?'' Young said. 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I became much more serious about the business when I had children.' Young retires from an era Young took an unusual path through his Saratoga youth, one that led him further financially than many of his peers. Though many had previously judged and mocked him for his failures at school, Young proved that early academic achievement doesn't define success when he attended his 40-year high school reunion as the owner of two houses and two Porsches. Young recently sold his multi-million dollar business, which employs over 20 people, to a private equity firm, and he retired in December. After years of hard work, he now spends his time exploring the world, fulfilling all his childhood dreams. He began his travel journey by spending two month in Japan and Hawaii, experiencing the culture, food, and natural wonders each place has to offer. Though Young didn't make it through high school, all three of his kids went on to attend prestigious universities after completing high school. 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Boston Globe
20 hours ago
- Boston Globe
In the oppressive heat, fear, food, and hope collide on Broadway in Chelsea
People are patient but not happy, because it's hot as hell. The numbers on their wrists to hold their place in line start to smear. The heart of Chelsea's main street is torn up by construction. In some respects, their lives have been torn apart by the one-two punch of hunger and fear of federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Inside the storefront church, a fan whirs as a dozen volunteers scurry about packing up food. The church chairs have all been removed and boxes filled with food cover much of the floor. Volunteer Marilea Mendonca helps prepare 400 boxes of groceries for those in line. Stan Grossfeld/Globe Staff Advertisement The need is great, the mood intense, despite the sign on the wall. 'Worry about nothing. Pray about everything.' Philippians 4:6 Elian Mora, 1, naps in line with her mom, who came from El Salvador. Stan Grossfeld/Globe Staff 'This is a social pandemic,' says Pastor Elaine Mendes, director of Revival Chelsea. She waits until the last moment to add refrigerated items like milk and eggs to the 30-pound boxes. 'It's poor people. It's needy people.' Most are people of color. The diversity is evident in the line, which is now so long, the end is not visible. There's a Moroccan woman with a child, an Asian woman wearing a mask, a senior citizen holding extra plastic bags, and a Hispanic woman stoically standing. Advertisement 'This is a social pandemic,' says Pastor Elaine Mendes, director of Revival Chelsea, who adds milk to the boxes of food ready to be distributed. Stan Grossfeld/Globe Staff Many hide their faces or turn around when a camera is pointed at them. One man flicked his hand like he was shooing a fly. They are in no mood to talk. 'They think you are ICE,' says Mendes, who has been operating the food pantry for 10 years. Mendes worries that proposed federal budget cuts will make the situation worse. 'Everything that I can see since January, it's for the wealthy people, for the rich people.' A United Nations of diversity is found on Broadway in Chelsea as people line up for the weekly food pantry distribution. Stan Grossfeld/Globe Staff She refuses to mention the president's name. 'It's the administration,' she says. 'I don't think this administration is looking out for the low-income people right now.' The food is donated mainly from 'Food For Free,' a nonprofit in Somerville. It's the good stuff from Trader Joe's, Amazon Fresh, and Whole Foods. Not the canned beef and vegetable government surplus variety, or the cheap ramen, or starchy mac and cheese. Revival Chelsea sometimes supplements the groceries by buying milk when it can afford the expense. There are three major food banks in Chelsea. 'It is not enough,' Mendes says. Residents jam the streets for the weekly food pantry at the Revival International Center, a community church that distributes food boxes to those in need in the Chelsea area. Stan Grossfeld/Globe Staff According to a new report by Mass General Brigham and t 'Very low food insecurity — the most severe form, occurring when an individual must skip meals or not eat for the entire day because they don't have enough money for food — has nearly quadrupled to 24 percent in 2024 from 6 percent in 2019, pointing to widening socioeconomic gaps,' the report says. Mendes's worst nightmare is that ICE will just pull up and start grabbing people. Advertisement She says that ICE collaborators have intimidated those waiting in line here on two different occasions. (They also tried to attend an English as a second language class held here, Mendes says.) Hundreds of people line up in the hopes of receiving one of the 400 food boxes distributed by the Revival International Center. Stan Grossfeld 'They didn't come to talk. They didn't say nothing. They came to scare the population and make people afraid. It worked. We had a lot of food left over because people were afraid.' Here, Mendes offers anonymity. 'We don't take their name. We don't take nothing.' The center also hosts numerous social and educational activities, like community gatherings for men and for the homeless, and yoga classes. There's even a climate change seminar. Once people have received their groceries, some mix and match, sharing what they've received with each other on Broadway in Chelsea. Stan Grossfeld 'Food pantry is my main program but then through the week, I can offer all the programs to make them feel comfortable and feel happy,' says Mendes. 'I think the presence of ICE on the street breaks this peaceful way that we have. ... I mean, they are messing up our job.' At 3 p.m., volunteers push the boxes on a roller conveyor and open the door. They distribute the boxes one by one. They keep pastries up at the front to reward kids who have waited patiently in line. Volunteers unload two truckloads and a van full of food to feed the poor in Chelsea. Stan Grossfeld/Globe Staff On this Monday, 465 people (not counting children) show up and make sure they don't block the other merchants' doorways. Once they get their groceries, some linger on the sidewalk and make trades. A vegetarian will trade hamburger meat for fruit and vegetables. Others leave disappointed, because the food runs out. 'It's horrible that we couldn't feed everybody,' Mendes says. Mendes scrambles inside to the multiple refrigerators and finds a dozen eggs for each of the last 65 people. Advertisement She scoffs at the racial trope that unfairly portrays immigrants as dangerous. A woman leaves Revival Chelsea with a boxful of fresh food after waiting three hours in the summer heat. Stan Grossfeld/Globe Staff 'We have mothers, we have children. We don't have any criminals in the line. I don't think a criminal would wait three hours in the heat or in the snow.' 'No, it's poor people,' she continues. 'I'm going to help these people. And I think everyone should do the same thing. We should help each other. We should protect each other because one day we're all going to need each other.' @font-face { font-family: BentonSansCond-Regular; src: url(" format('woff2'), url(" format('woff'); } @font-face { font-family: BentonSansCond-Bold; src: url(" format('woff2'), url(" format('woff'); } .dipupnext_hed { font-family: "MillerHeadline-Bold", "Times New Roman", Times, Georgia, serif; letter-spacing: .75px; text-align: center; font-size: 1.25em; line-height: 1; margin-top: 3px; color: #000; width: 100%; font-weight: 600; } .dipupnext_cap_cred { font-family: "BentonSansCond-Regular", "Times New Roman", Times, Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: .5px; text-align: left; margin: 3px 0px 5px 0px; font-weight: 200; color: #000; text-decoration: none; text-align: center; } .dipupnext_photo { max-width: 100%; height: auto; padding-top: 15px; opacity: 1; } .dipupnext__form:hover { opacity: .5; text-decoration: underline .5px; } .dipupnext__form{ opacity: 1; } .picupnext__container { width: 100%; position: relative; margin: 0 auto; } .dipupnext__content { width: 100%; display: grid; grid-template-columns: 3fr; } .cdipupnextcontainer { display: block; width:100%; height: auto; margin:0 auto; -moz-box-sizing: border-box; overflow: hidden; } .upnext { font-family: "BentonSansCond-Bold", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; text-align: center; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.15; margin-top: .5rem; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000; padding: 8px 8px 4px 8px; margin-top: 5px; letter-spacing: .5px; } .upnext:before, .upnext:after { background-color: #000; content: ""; display: inline-block; height: 1px; position: relative; vertical-align: 4px; width: 32%; } .upnext:before { right: 0.3em; margin-left: -50%; } .upnext:after { left: 0.3em; margin-right: -50%; } .theme-dark .upnext:before { background-color: #fff; } .theme-dark .upnext:after { background-color: #fff; } .theme-dark .upnext { color: #fff; } .theme-dark .dipupnext_cap_cred { color: #fff; } .theme-dark .dipupnext_hed { color: #fff; } @media screen and (min-width: 800px){ .dipupnext__content { grid-template-columns: 1fr 1fr 1fr; grid-column-gap: 40px; } } UP NEXT Stan Grossfeld can be reached at
Boston Globe
2 days ago
- Boston Globe
Boston Archbishop received vestment blessed by Pope Leo in a Rome ceremony
'By the gift of this stole placed within the tomb of Peter, Pope Leo links my ministry in Boston to his own and to the communion of the Catholic Church across the world,' Henning said in a statement to the Globe. 'He spoke today about the character of that communion, a unity that does not diminish our individual freedom, dignity, or diversity,' he said. 'Communion in the Lord ever makes us more, not less - as individuals and as a community.' Advertisement Henning said the imagery of the stole reminds him of the biblical reference of the Good Shepherd, who cares for the flock and seeks out the lost sheep. 'I will return from Rome renewed and determined to live up to that charge in serving the Church of Boston. The Catholics of the Archdiocese of Boston are in my heart and in my prayers,' Henning said. Related : Advertisement In Latin, pallium means 'mantle' or 'cloak.' The practice is centuries-old, and it focuses on bringing unity between metropolitan archbishops and the pope. The Church's He is the tenth bishop and seventh archbishop of the Archdiocese of Boston. The Sunday ceremony marked Henning's first interaction with the new pope, a Chicago native, born as Robert Prevost, who became the first pope from the United States. Related : Other US archbishops who received the pallium on Sunday were from the archdioceses of Washington, Kansas City, Omaha, Cincinnati, Galveston-Houston, Milwaukee, and Detroit. CatholicTV will rebroadcast the Sunday morning mass on Sunday at 8 p.m. Marcela Rodrigues can be reached at
