Home Posts tagged Bob Bolduc

Center Created in Former CityStage Is Designed to Educate, Inspire

By
Bob and Roberta Bolduc
Cover Story

Work of Arts

 

As he talks about Hope for Youth & Families (HYF), the foundation he created in 2022 after selling his Pride chain of gas stations and stores, Bob Bolduc will inevitably reference the “three legs of the stool,” as he puts it, meaning its main focus points.

One is literacy, where the family foundation is making progress in efforts to help young people who fall behind in reading proficiency and are in danger of dropping out of school as a result. The initiative, involving interns and peer-to-peer support, has yielded results, with half of those involved moving up a full grade in reading level and another quarter moving up two grades.

Bob and Roberta Bolduc

Bob and Roberta Bolduc.

Students take a guitar lesson during one of the summer programs at Hope Center for the Arts.

Students take a guitar lesson during one of the summer programs at Hope Center for the Arts.

The second stool involves high-achieving students and providing them with avenues to a college education. And the third is participation in the arts, something that is in many ways lacking in Springfield, said Bolduc, due to funding restrictions in the schools.

It is this third leg, the arts, that is … well, taking center stage recently through a massive, ongoing effort to transform the former CityStage in downtown Springfield, dormant for several years now, into an arts hub for Springfield youth.

Called the Hope Center for the Arts, the facility has become a passion project for Bolduc, his wife, Roberta, and his foundation, which acquired the former CityStage for $1 million at auction in 2023 and has since invested roughly $15 million in the center, which will be thoroughly modern in every respect.

“We didn’t spare any expense — it’s all state-of-the-art, from the stage to the security,” said Bolduc, adding that the center, spread across nearly 40,000 square feet over two levels, is designed to provide flexible learning, rehearsal, and performance space that will advance the mission of HYF and several partner organizations focused on both the arts and helping youth and families in Springfield thrive.

Build-out of various spaces continued at a frenetic pace through the winter and spring, leading to the start of free summer programs for middle school and high school students, which began July 7 and will run until Aug. 1. During the school year, there will be after-school programs.

Meanwhile, the city and region will regain a valuable asset in the center’s main stage, which has been retrofitted with sound and lighting equipment that will make it one of the most advanced facilities of its kind in the country, one that will see a full schedule of performances — starting with the Springfield Jazz & Roots Festival earlier this month — by artists that will involve young people involved with the center in some way.

“The arts are not just entertaining and cultural, which we need in this city; they’re also inspiring. Imagine a kid who gets turned on to dance or vocals or an instrument and then goes to a good school on a scholarship … we’ve changed their life.”

As he talked about the main stage, Kyle Homstead, technical director of the center, said the sound will be “three-dimensional” in nature, and the lighting system will enable crews to create virtually any kind of digital landscape, both behind the performers on a large screen and beneath their feet on the stage.

“All this makes this room a multi-media powerhouse,” he explained, one that will draw performers across a broad spectrum to Springfield. “We’ll be able to transform and bring all kinds of imagination to life. Whether it’s a touring performance artist or kids in our program, we’ll be able to take their ideas and all the types of art going on in this facility and really bring it to life.”

While the main stage gets much of the attention, the center focuses on all aspects of the arts and also includes a 110-seat black box theater, two large rehearsal rooms and two smaller ones, practice rooms, a recording studio and media production room, a digital arts classroom, a visual arts studio, a photography studio, childcare space, a teen café and lounge, and a catering kitchen and service counter. There are also plans to convert the former Pizzeria Uno space (currently a hookah lounge at the tail end of its lease) into a student-run coffee shop.

Kyle Homstead (at left) on the main stage at the Hope Center for the Arts.

Kyle Homstead (at left) on the main stage at the Hope Center for the Arts.

Bolduc showed off all of this and more during a detailed tour during which he focused on not just on the facilities being created, but what they mean for young people in the city — and their families.

“The arts are not just entertaining and cultural, which we need in this city; they’re also inspiring,” he explained. “Imagine a kid who gets turned on to dance or vocals or an instrument and then goes to a good school on a scholarship … we’ve changed their life.

“Arts programming can be an important contributor to student success in school, and yet arts programs are often the first to fall victim to budget cuts,” he went on, adding that compounding this is a lack of things do after school. “Unless they play sports, they have nothing to do, and … being kids, some of them are going to get into trouble. Young people who may not be interested in sports deserve just as much opportunity and access to programs that enrich their lives and encourage them to express themselves.”

For this issue, BusinessWest got what we’ll call a backstage look at the Hope Center for the Arts, learning not only how that dormant space has been dramatically and colorfully transformed, but how its various programs may transform young lives.

 

Filling in the Canvas

Flashing back a few years, Bolduc said he approached the city about possibly renting CityStage for some initiatives to address that third leg of the stool he mentioned.

He said he was told that, while this might be an option, the city would prefer to sell it to him — or anyone else who might be interested.

“We came to realize that we had the potential here to be not just a theater, like it used to be, but to make this a true center for the arts.”

Not many were, and Bolduc prevailed at a public auction. And it was soon thereafter that he and others at the foundation realized that they could and should do much more than revive the main stage — originally known as StageWest and later renamed CityStage — that had hosted a wide variety of plays and other forms of entertainment for more than 35 years.

“We came to realize that we had the potential here to be not just a theater, like it used to be, but to make this a true center for the arts,” he explained. “We created an advisory board and met with just about every nonprofit group in the region and had them all through for tours. And people would say, ‘you can do this,’ and ‘you can do that.’ So it became very clear that we had the potential here to create a center for the arts, something like the Kennedy Center.”

And over the past 18 months or so, this vision has become a stunning reality, he said, adding that the project has involved a wide variety of tradespeople working on everything from HVAC systems to security systems; lighting installations to creation of a toddlers’ room where parents can leave younger children while they watch performances involving older siblings.

And the famously detail-oriented Bolduc has presided over every step in the process, from arrangement of free breakfast and lunch to a program enabling parents to drop off children early for programming — and pick them up late — to accommodate work schedules, to streaming services for parents and grandparents who can’t get to a performance for some reason.

“I’m a perfectionist; we’ve taken care of all those details. Whenever we see a problem, we fix it,” he said, adding that the summer programs alone come with a price tag north of $250,000.

An architect’s rendering of the courtyard area, being renovated by the city, outside the Hope Center for the Arts.

An architect’s rendering of the courtyard area, being renovated by the city, outside the Hope Center for the Arts.

Meanwhile, the facilities are, as noted, state of the art. And nowhere is this more true than in the main stage, which has been reborn, and transformed, in dramatic fashion, as Homstead explained.

“We’re super excited about what this theater is going to bring to Springfield,” he said, adding that, while the team at the foundation drew inspiration from its unique design and construction of the stage and seating areas, the technical systems have been redesigned to make this one of the most advanced theaters in the Northeast — starting with what’s known as a spacial audio system, designed by L-Acoustics, a global leader in speaker manufacturing.

“They’re at the vanguard of audio technology; across the front, instead of the traditional left and right speakers, there’s five hangs of speakers that are part of what we call the main scene, and then we have 26 speakers in surround. What that allows us to do is mix in a whole new way that’s three-dimensional.

“Instead of hearing all the sounds piled on top of one another coming out of two speakers, left and right, we’re spreading all those sounds across the entire sound field to create something that, if you close your eyes, sounds very three-dimensional and very much as if you’re listening to a band spread out on stage,” he went on, adding that this is the second such installation in the country.

 

The Sound of Progress

The huge investments in the former CityStage space, which include much more than the main stage, paid dividends that were recognizable on day two of the summer program, when Bolduc led another tour, showing young people getting lessons in guitar, vocals, dance, theater, and more.

“This is not a summer camp,” he explained. “Kids can sign up for it, state their preferences, and they’ll be able to go to programs by professional artists to learn and participate in theater, all kinds of chorus, all kinds of dance, all kinds of visual arts, photography, creative writing, and audio-visual media labs that are as good or better than any of the top colleges.”

The summer programs will be a testing ground of sorts, Bolduc noted, adding that they will help shape programming to be conducted during the school year, which will have those twin goals of immersing young people in the arts and perhaps inspiring pursuit of college arts programs and careers in various fields.

The facility even includes recording rooms that young people can utilize to create portfolios of their work that may help them get accepted into a college arts program.

“They need a recording of them singing, playing an instrument, dancing, or whatever — and there’s no place to do that,” he explained. “We have recording studios where they can do it for free.”

Overall, every aspect of the center is similarly designed to not only educate, but provide a leg up for pursuit of further education or employment.

And that extends to the planned coffee shop in the former Pizzeria Uno space, a work in progress on many levels and a program that may not become reality for a few years, but is already stirring the imagination.

“Imagine if this was run by kids so we can teach them business, marketing, finance, and culinary arts, and it was open to the public,” Bolduc said. “And suppose there was a small stage in there with an open mic so that students can go in there and perform for free; they get to shine.”

Allowing young people to shine, and perhaps change the trajectory of their lives in the process, is the overriding mission of the Hope Center for the Arts, which has transformed a once-vacant space and has the power to help transform Springfield’s downtown as well as generations of young people.

It is truly a work of arts.

An Achievement of Note

By
Opinion

Editorial

 

When Bob Bolduc sold his hugely successful chain of Pride stations and stores a few years ago, people wondered what the entrepreneur, philanthropist, and BusinessWest Difference Maker would do next. They didn’t have to wait long for the answer.

It came in the form of Hope for Youth & Families, a foundation into which Bolduc has put the same intense drive and attention to detail as his business. In three short years, the family foundation has made progress with its three stated points of focus — literacy, helping young people find paths to a college education, and the arts.

And it is in the last category that the foundation has made its most visible, and potentially most impactful, contribution, with the creation of the Hope Center for the Arts in the former CityStage space in downtown Springfield (see story on page 4).

CityStage has been dormant for many years now, and the stunning transformation into the Hope Center for the Arts reactivates that space in a powerful way. But this is about much more than turning the stage lights back on at that theater — although that has been accomplished as well.

Bolduc and others at the foundation realized early on that they could do a lot more than bring CityStage online. They could create a true learning and performance center, where young people could become immersed in everything from dance to theater; music to photography; creative writing to visual arts.

And that’s what has been created in the various spaces at the center, into which the foundation has poured more than $15 million, by Bolduc’s estimates, for everything from new HVAC systems to a teen café and lounge to a revamped main stage that is state of the art in every way.

Bolduc likes to say he’s not making these investments in equipment or infrastructure or lighting. He’s making them in young people. Several generations of young people.

And he’s right. Because while the new stage might produce rich sound and intense lighting, what it and the other facilities at the center ultimately do is help educate young people and, through the arts, inspire them to reach higher, pursue excellence, unlock talent, and perhaps even find a career.

They might possibly have done all that without the Hope Center for the Arts, but this new facility, clearly one of the better and more inspiring stories unfolding in Springfield, makes it exponentially easier.

Bolduc says he hopes the new center changes the trajectory of many young lives in Springfield. We believe it will.

Discovery High Students Get Taste of Working World

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From left, Declan O’Connor, Kelley Gangi, and Evan Plotkin in a classroom in the new Discovery High School.
Modern Office Special Coverage

View to the Future?

From left, Declan O’Connor, Kelley Gangi, and Evan Plotkin in a classroom in the new Discovery High School.

From left, Declan O’Connor, Kelley Gangi, and Evan Plotkin in a classroom in the new Discovery High School.

Bob Bolduc remembers getting the call from Bill Low, a commercial real-estate broker based in Springfield.

Low was working with Bolduc on finding a new home for Discovery Polytech Early College High School, then located in cramped quarters within Chestnut Middle School, and he had an intriguing suggestion.

When Low explained that the space in question was the top two floors of 1350 Main St. in the heart of downtown Springfield, former home to BankBoston’s regional headquarters, Bolduc, former owner of the Pride chain of stores and gas stations who created the Hope for Youth and Families Foundation with proceeds from the sale of that chain, thought that concept had promise, but it was outside the box. As in way outside the box.

He recalls phoning Matt Brunell, co-executive director of the Springfield Empowerment Zone, which Discovery High is part of, and saying, “this is crazy … but we should at least give it a look.”

“Our school is a STEM high school — we’re an early-college high school, but we’re also a STEM school. Most of our kids are going to work in companies that look like our school. I had the amazing opportunity to work with a team and an architect to design a space that looks like a tech company.”

They did, and that was the official start to a journey that ended on Aug. 28, when the 250 students at Discovery High turned out around 7 a.m. for a different kind of first day at a different kind of school.

One with lots of windows and penthouse (literally) views of the city, the Connecticut River, neighboring communities, and much more. One where students take an elevator to get to class, and might share one with a lawyer, accountant, or nonprofit manager — or maybe one of each. One where they take a PVTA bus, not a yellow school bus, to school. One where the cafeteria looks like your typical school cafeteria … except it’s 17 floors up and has seats that face windows that provide those views.

That aforementioned journey came complete with a whole host of challenges, a super-tight deadline (the first day of school can’t be moved), and the chance to do something really special, said Evan Plotkin, president of NAI Plotkin and co-owner of 1350 Main. He told BusinessWest that bringing a high school, especially this one, where students start taking college courses as freshmen, to downtown Springfield, presents intriguing opportunities for the students, faculty, the businesses in the building — and other buildings downtown — and the city itself.

These opportunities include student internships at downtown businesses, being next door (again, literally) to the Springfield Symphony Orchestra and a block or two from the Quadrangle and its many learning opportunities, and just being part of the dynamic in the city’s central business district.

Add them all up, said Declan O’Connor, principal of the school, and what emerges is an opportunity for students to attend school at a place that looks and feels like the world of work — where they will hopefully be in a half-dozen years or so.

The classrooms at the new Discovery High

The classrooms at the new Discovery High have glass at the front and back and were designed to resemble workspaces at tech companies.

“This was about identity building,” he explained. “Our school is a STEM high school — we’re an early-college high school, but we’re also a STEM school. Most of our kids are going to work in companies that look like our school. I had the amazing opportunity to work with a team and an architect to design a space that looks like a tech company.”

Meanwhile, the relocation of Discovery High to a downtown office tower might become a model for what other cities can do with office space that isn’t needed anymore and is too difficult (and too expensive) to convert into housing, said Plotkin, adding that, for cities and towns, it might prove cheaper to lease space in buildings like his than build and maintain schools.

“The more we looked at the program, and the more we looked at what we think students are really going to need to succeed in life — not only these early-college credits they’re earning, but also work-based learning — we realized that the best place for a school was going to one where students were going to get ease of access to work-based learning opportunities and see themselves as part of the industry and commerce of the city of Springfield.”

“It’s cheaper to buy milk than own cows, as my father used to say,” he noted, adding that this project should generate discussion on the subject.

For this issue and its focus on commercial real estate, we take an in-depth look at how this project came together and what it means for the many stakeholders involved.

 

School Daze

Ninety days.

That’s roughly how long Plotkin and the architects and general contractors he assigned to the project had to convert the office space on the 16th and 17th floors after all the involved parties — and there were many of them — had given their respective green lights to Discovery High’s relocation to 1350 Main.

Plotkin recalls being nervous as the days seemingly flew by in August. But those involved got it all done.

And what they created is, as O’Connor said, a high school that not only helps prepare people for the world of work, but looks like the world of work.

Specifically, the classrooms look more like very large private offices, complete with glass at the front and back. There’s a grand staircase that connects the two floors and looks like it belongs in an elaborate corporate headquarters — and it did.

Then there’s the cafeteria, created in a space that was once home to rows of cubicles. As noted earlier, it looks like a traditional school cafeteria — but not really.

All this is what Low, Plotkin, Bolduc, Brunell, O’Connor, and others were able to picture back in the spring. Sort of.

Indeed, it would take a while for the picture to start to come together. Meanwhile, there were questions to be answered, said O’Connor, involving everything from security to how to get 250 students to school in elevators over a short time span.

The staircase linking the two floors at Discovery High looks like it belongs in a corporate headquarters — and it did.

The staircase linking the two floors at Discovery High looks like it belongs in a corporate headquarters — and it did.

One by one, these challenges were worked out, said those we spoke with, and now that the proverbial dust has settled — although this is still all very new — they can stop and reflect on what they and the students have here: an ideal setting for a still-young (this is only its fourth year) institution described by Brunell as a “wall-to-wall early-college” model, one where students can graduate from high school with enough credits for an associate degree.

The school had been located in Chestnut Middle School from the beginning, and, almost from the start, it had been looking for its next home, because that one wasn’t working, for many reasons. Cramped quarters was one of them, but high-school students being on a middle-school campus was the bigger one.

“The real innovation here was the city as a campus. The location here, more than any other, provided students with this very unique opportunity to have access to all the assets in the city.”

As the search commenced two and a half years ago, and especially over the past year or so as Bolduc and his foundation became involved in the project, the goal was always to think outside the box, said Brunell, meaning the consideration non-traditional spaces.

“The more we looked at the program, and the more we looked at what we think students are really going to need to succeed in life — not only these early-college credits they’re earning, but also work-based learning — we realized that the best place for a school was going to one where students were going to get ease of access to work-based learning opportunities and see themselves as part of the industry and commerce of the city of Springfield,” he explained.

Matt Brunell in the cafeteria in the new Discovery High School.

Matt Brunell in the cafeteria in the new Discovery High School.

A few different sites were looked at — within the downtown but also in commercial spaces near some of the college campuses where students attend classes. But after the initial visit, 1350 Main St. emerged as a “dream location,” one that married easy access to the school’s college partners with a space that could be tailored to Discovery’s programs and provide proximity to, and connections with, downtown businesses and cultural institutions.

“The real innovation here was the city as a campus,” said Kelly Gangi, chief of School Innovation for Discovery High. “The location here, more than any other, provided students with this very unique opportunity to have access to all the assets in the city.”

 

Setting the Stage

BusinessWest visited Discovery High mid-morning on a Thursday, which meant it was relatively quiet.

The sophomores, juniors, and the first batch of seniors — as well as some freshmen — were attending early-college classes at several different schools, including Springfield Technical Community College, Western New England University, and Quinsigamond Community College in Worcester. Most of the students who weren’t on the road were in class.

But it was still easy to see the many opportunities this site affords those attending the school. The accommodations, as noted, are both modern and different in that they look and feel more like class-A office space (which, again, this was) than a traditional school.

There’s also the opportunity to be more independent than in a traditional school setting — from taking a PVTA bus to being out in the downtown.

“The other day, Kelly and I were coming back from Starbucks and encountered some students walking in the other direction,” O’Connor recalled. “I said ‘where are you going?’ They said, ‘we’re going to Big Y … we have 12 minutes before school starts.’”

Such episodes help explain why the site offers much more than views out its many windows, said those we spoke with, noting that being downtown provides students with a chance to see and be part of their city in a way that simply wasn’t possible in their corner of Chestnut Middle School. And also a chance to maybe … well, gain some maturity in the process.

“One might think that students can’t handle a school that’s all glass — that they might be goofy with each other and be distracted by one another,” O’Connor said. “They’ve just settled into it because this whole experience is trusting them, as young adults, to exist in a space that they absolutely belong in.

“They’re learning how to move through the building, get on elevators and interact with adult professionals, ride the elevator up and enter a space and move through that space in ways that they are trusted to handle,” he went on. “It’s very much like working in a company, and I think that’s going to translate.”

And while this new downtown location is pioneering from an education perspective, the same is true when it comes to adoptive reuse of class-A office space, said Plotkin, noting that he hasn’t seen or heard of many — or even any — conversions like this one.

As he said, Discovery High might in time become a model for other cities with large portfolios of vacant office space in the wake of the remote-work surge — and there are many of them.

Plotkin said he’s thinking about writing an article for the New England Real Estate Journal on Discovery High landing in 1350 Main. In the meantime, a different kind of story is being written at the new Discovery High.

A story of innovation, outside-the-box thinking, teamwork, partnerships, and reaching higher. That’s what it took to get this done, and those are some of the things students are learning about in their unique new home.

 

BusinessTalk with Bob Bolduc, founder of Pride Stations and Stores

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Business Talk Podcast Special Coverage

We are excited to announce that BusinessWest has launched a new podcast series, BusinessTalk. Each episode will feature in-depth interviews and discussions with local industry leaders, providing thoughtful perspectives on the Western Massachuetts economy and the many business ventures that keep it running during these challenging times.

Go HERE to view all episodes

Episode 138: November 28, 2022

George Interviews Bob Bolduc, founder of Pride Stations and Stores

It’s called the Hope for Youth & Families Foundation. That’s the next chapter in the life and career of entrepreneur and philanthropist Bob Bolduc, founder of Pride Stations and Stores. On the next installment of BusinessTalk, BusinessWest Editor George O’Brien talks with Bolduc about his new foundation and its broad goal of helping individuals and families achieve sustainability. It’s must listening, so tune in to BusinessTalk, a podcast presented by BusinessWest in partnership with Living Local 413 and sponsored by PeoplesBank.

 

 

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Bob Bolduc’s Next Chapter Is a Focus on Helping Others Achieve Sustainability

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Cover Story

Building a Foundation

 

As he talked about the foundation he created with some of the proceeds from the sale of Pride Stations and Stores — the business he started more than 40 years ago — and the many difficult societal problems it will address, Bob Bolduc summoned an often-paraphrased quote from John F. Kennedy.

It went this way:

“The great French Marshal Lyautey once asked his gardener to plant a tree. The gardener objected that the tree was slow-growing and wouldn’t reach maturity for 100 years. The Marshal replied, ‘in that case, there is no time to lose — plant it this afternoon!’”

Bolduc recalled the story to drive home the point that the country, and Kennedy’s administration, faced some stubborn, deep-rooted problems, and because they would take a long time to resolve, no time should be wasted in addressing them.

Bolduc, the hugely successful entrepreneur also known for his high level of involvement in the community, and especially Springfield, struck those same tones while talking about the Hope for Youth & Families Foundation, launched earlier this year, and its broad mission.

“Helping youth and families achieve sustainability is the ultimate goal, and that’s not going to happen overnight,” he told BusinessWest. “It starts with the youth, and it’s going to take time to get them from pre-kindergarten into a career. So we’re looking at a long-range plan.

“And along the way, a lot of things have to be done right,” he went on. “So it’s absolutely a long-term, major project.”

Even before Bolduc launched the Hope for Youth & Families Foundation, back when he was planting the seeds and talking in broad strokes about its mission and how it would be carried out, he stressed repeatedly that this endeavor was not about writing checks — although it would undoubtedly write some.

“Helping youth and families achieve sustainability is the ultimate goal, and that’s not going to happen overnight.”

Instead, it was about creating a foundation that would be — and he would use these three words early and often — a convener, a facilitator, and a catalyst.

Shannon Mumblo, who became executive director of the foundation — and its first employee — just a few months ago, agreed.

She said the foundation’s mission statement — “to work within under-resourced communities, create alliances, and find solutions in all aspects necessary to help youth and families achieve sustainability” — speaks to the work it will carry out and how it will go about this work.

Indeed, as they talked about the new foundation and how it will go about its work, both Bolduc and Mumblo noted there are many other foundations, individual agencies, and major institutions already doing good work in this region. The goal moving forward is not to duplicate such work, but build on it, forge new alliances, and create more momentum with the many issues involved with creating sustainability.

And the foundation has already launched several new initiatives, everything from a Trauma Institute — born from the knowledge that trauma is one of the lead social determinants of health and a key contributor to many challenges facing youth and families — to an ‘Inspirational Speaker Series’ at which students will learn about career opportunities in various fields.

The Trauma Institute, which will provide training and consultative services to area agencies and nonprofits serving youth and families, is an early example of those at the new foundation listening to others and responding to identified needs.

Shannon Mumblo

Shannon Mumblo says the Hope for Youth and Families Foundation will, through its Trauma Institute, put a focus on providing trauma-informed services and training.

“We’re not here to replicate anything that’s already being done — we’re here to add value, and to meet needs where they arise,” Mumblo said. “We heard there was a need for something like this, and it has been very well-received within the community.”

For this issue, one that includes its annual Giving Guide, BusinessWest talked with the team at the Hope for Youth & Families Foundation about its broad mission and the long, challenging, and rewarding work that lies ahead.

 

Listening and Learning

There’s a box of tissues on the conference-room table at the foundation’s new office in Springfield.

It was added several months ago, and it’s now a permanent feature, said Bolduc, adding that many of the topics discussed — and stories heard — at the table have prompted those assembled to reach for the tissue box.

This process of listening is a big part of the early work being done at the foundation, said those we spoke with, adding that all those involved are still in the process of learning, identifying issues and ways in which the foundation can become involved, and then developing strategies for this involvement.

Summing it up, Bolduc and Mumblo called it the “Sustainability Challenge,” noting that it has both foundational building blocks — funding, alliances both local and national, data collection, and tracking of progress are just some of them — and a number of initiatives and programs ranging from foster care and supportive housing to summer camps, mentoring and tutoring programs, and scholarships.

The foundation’s work on the Sustainability Challenge is still very much in its infancy stage, said Bolduc, adding that, while he has been talking about his new foundation for the better part of a year now, the sale of the Pride chain was quite complicated, and it took several months to “unravel a lot of complicated issues,” as he put it.

Mumblo, the foundation’s first employee, did not come on board until July, he said, adding that this hire was an important initial step.

For Mumblo, the offer from Bolduc to lead the foundation, extended about a year ago, came somewhat out of the blue. When Bolduc called, she was serving as executive director of Christina’s House in Springfield, a nonprofit focused on providing transitional housing for women and their children, work that earned her status as one of BusinessWest’s Women of Impact for 2021. And she was quite happy in that work.

“I thought Christina’s House was going to the place where I retired eventually,” she said, adding she asked for time to think about this opportunity, and was given it. Her career plans changed when she learned more about the new foundation and the initial roadmap for how it would carry out its mission.

“Bob’s vision and values in the world really aligned with mine,” she noted. “And the bottom line for me was that it was not about handing out checks; it was about doing work — not just talking, but being immersed in the community and listening to what the community really needed and then building the foundation around that need. That’s what brought me here.”

She’s now leading a foundation that has that broad mission statement — and was inspired by all that Bolduc saw, heard, and learned about area communities and specific neighborhoods, and the many kinds of challenges they are facing.

“Because, over my career, I’ve had stores in all the different neighborhoods, I’ve had the opportunity to get to know the populations in these neighborhoods, and I saw the need in the inner cities to help youth and families,” he explained. “When our family decided to start a foundation, we made that our mission — to work with youth and families in the inner cities.

“We had to define the problem and set goals,” he went on, adding that this work is in many ways being shaped by some interviews with 15-year-old girls conducted several years ago.

“When sustainability becomes the goal, we then need to look at what we have to do to make this happen. And we found that we just have to roll up our sleeves and get to work — in all the ways.”

“We asked them what they wanted to do when they grew up,” he recalled. “And when the question came, ‘do you think you’ll go to college?’ every one of them said, categorically, ‘no, I could never go to college.’

“That became one of the points in our mission, and that is to help youth to be sustainable and find a job,” he went on. “It doesn’t necessarily have to be college, but to have a better life, be sustainable, stay in the city — which is a great city — and to ultimately give back, like we want to do.”

Sustainability is the identified goal, or mission. Attaining it is, of course, a challenge, and it has been for decades, he continued, referencing JFK’s famous quote and the need to plant the tree and get started.

“When sustainability becomes the goal, we then need to look at what we have to do to make this happen,” Bolduc told BusinessWest. “And we found that we just have to roll up our sleeves and get to work — in all the ways.”

 

Addressing Needs

This ‘getting to work’ has taken many forms thus far, but much of it has involved meeting with the many agencies working on issues involving sustainability, listening to what they have to say, and thinking about ways to partner with them.

“Over the past few months, we’ve been meeting with every agency and nonprofit that fits into this plan — and we have a few more to go,” Bolduc said. “And we’re finding great people and great programs already in place; unfortunately, we’re finding some silos, and lots of problems. But those problems … we’re calling those opportunities to improve.”

And while listening and learning, those at the foundation have already launched several new initiatives aimed at addressing the needs conveyed to them.

One of these steps is creation of the Trauma Institute, which has its own mission statement — “to provide trauma-informed and responsive support services to youth and families and those who work with them in under-resourced communities.”

And it carries out that mission in many ways, including training and consultation focused on serving youth and families and those who work with them in under-resourced communities, partnerships, and policy and advocacy.

“We’re focused on helping to create pathways to graduation and then on to careers or college. We’re starting young and getting students involved in their education, wanting to go to school, and wanting to further their education or career goals.”

“There is a lot of work being done in mental health, specifically in trauma, but there are gaps because the need is so great and there aren’t enough resources to meet the need in the community,” said Mumblo, noting that she became well aware of these needs and gaps while leading Christina’s House and convinced Bolduc that work to address trauma needed to be a primary focal point of the Hope for Youth & Families Foundation.

“In my previous work with mothers and their children, I came to understand that their trauma is great, and it has many levels and many layers,” she explained. “You can teach life skills and provide a lot of education to help move someone from a point of homelessness or near-homelessness into independent living and stability and success. But until you really reach the root of the issue — which, for me, I saw time and time again, was the trauma that they had experienced and the severing of trust on so many levels and inability to feel loved — until that work really began to happen, the process to change had started, but there was only so much change that was going to happen until you peeled away the layers of that trauma, built that trust, and provided a loving and safe environment.”

Elaborating, she said the need for trauma-informed support and services extends to individuals in the community, obviously, but also to those working in the agencies that provide such services.

“There are many organizations who are serving youth and families in this area and doing a tremendous amount of work,” she said. “But the vicarious trauma that comes from that as providers is great, and a lot of times we’re not great at taking care of ourselves.”

Overall, the foundation’s work with trauma is in its early, formative stages, said Mumblo, adding this is true of other initiatives as well, including the Inspired Speaker Series, which kicked off recently with an event at Springfield Symphony Hall, where students from several area high schools had the opportunity to hear about careers in the military.

Future gatherings, and there will be many of them, will focus on different career paths, said Mumblo, including STEM, healthcare, law and government, law enforcement, and business. The broad goal is to introduce students to careers, inform them of what it takes to forge a career in these fields, and help put them on a path that will take them where they want to go.

There are several initiatives, most all of them still in the formative stages, that fall into this broad realm, said Alison Schoen, director of Administration for the foundation, listing mentoring and tutoring services, as well as after-school and summer programs, as other examples.

“We’re focused on helping to create pathways to graduation and then on to careers or college,” she said. “We’re starting young and getting students involved in their education, wanting to go to school, and wanting to further their education or career goals. We’re working with local organizations that already have established mentoring and tutoring programs and helping to create ties that will bind them and enable them to learn from one another.”

This is just one example, said Bolduc, of those guiding principles he mentioned for this foundation — to be a convener, a facilitator, and a catalyst for positive change.

 

Bottom Line

Such change, as noted earlier, will not come quickly or easily.

That’s why, like that gardener mentioned at the top, those at the Hope for Youth and Families Foundation aren’t wasting any time planting that tree — or, in this case, trees.

The problems related to sustainability are deep-rooted, and addressing them will involve time, patience, persistence, imagination, and more.

Bolduc had those qualities in mind when he began the next chapter of what has been a remarkable career in business and in giving back to the community.

He knew that they would be needed to build a foundation — figuratively, but also quite literally.

 

George O’Brien can be reached at [email protected]

Region Can Take Pride in This Story

By
Opinion

Editorial

 

The news shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone.

Indeed, Bob Bolduc, the founder and owner of the Pride chain of gas stations and convenience stores, had announced his intentions to sell his business back in June, noting that it was time to retire and there was no one in the family interested in carrying on the business.

The search for a new buyer ended with the Boston-based private equity firm ArcLight Capital Partners, with the sale finalized at the end of last year.

Local press accounts have indicated that ArcLight plans no serious changes in the operation and intends to keep the chain intact and the name ‘Pride’ over the door. We hope all that is true. Any time a local business is sold to a national entity, there is concern that the region will be losing something in the translation.

And in this case, there is a lot to lose. That’s because, while Bolduc has been a bold, innovative entrepreneur who has authored one of the region’s more intriguing business success stories — the Pride chain boasts 31 stores (with more in various stages of development) and more than $300 million in annual sales — he has also been a philanthropist and strong supporter of many of the region’s nonprofit agencies.

Much was made of one particular act of philanthropy — actually, one act with many parts to it. That was Bolduc’s decision to donate Pride’s $50,000 ‘bonus’ for selling the single largest lottery win in U.S. history to one Mavis Wanczyk to a number of elementary schools and youth-focused nonprofits.

Some called it a publicity stunt — and he certainly got a lot of publicity from it — but Bolduc’s decision to share the wealth, and the manner in which he did, speaks volumes about how he gave back to the community, and especially its young people — and also why BusinessWest bestowed its coveted Difference Makers award on him in 2018.

“I decided to give it to the kids,” Bolduc said of his lottery bonus. “It’s a windfall; it’s not my money. So it was an easy decision to make.”

He has made many such decisions over the years, becoming a strong supporter of many local nonprofits, especially those focused on young people and families. That list includes Square One; Lincoln Elementary School in Springfield, which Pride has partnered with over the years; Brightside for Families and Children; WMAS and its Coats for Kids campaign; and many others.

Bolduc has always emphasized the need for businesses to give back, but especially to local agencies that can make a real impact on the quality of life enjoyed by people living and working in the 413.

We wish ArcLight well as it takes over the chain Bolduc started, nurtured, and grew over the past 45 years or so. We hope it continues Bolduc’s track record for innovation, including the placement of Subway shops, Dunkin’ Donuts stores, and, most recently, Chester’s chicken restaurants in his stores.

More importantly, we hope the company can continue Bolduc’s legacy of philanthropy and support of agencies focused on the region’s young people. By doing so, they’ll not only be keeping the Pride name over the door, they’ll be continuing the proud tradition of this company (and not just its founder) being a real difference maker in our region.