SPRINGFIELD — BusinessWest will host its 18th annual Difference Makers awards gal tonight, April 7, from 5:30 to 9 p.m. at the Log Cabin in Holyoke. The Difference Makers class of 2026 are profiled in the Feb. 16 issue of BusinessWest and at businesswest.com. This year’s honorees are:
• Ryan Alekman and Robert DiTusa, partners, Alekman DiTusa, LLC;
• Rachelle Hannoush, director of Youth, Violence Prevention, and Court Support Programs, YWCA of Western Massachusetts;
• Jess Miller, comedian and founder, The Kind Squad;
• Edward Sokolowski, managing partner and wealth advisor, Pioneer Valley Financial Group;
• Margaret Tantillo, executive director, O’Dell Women’s Center; and
• Zeno Temple, founder, Just Us Movement.
BusinessWest launched the Difference Makers program in 2009 to recognize and celebrate the work of individuals, groups, businesses, and institutions that are positively impacting the communities of Western Mass. The 18th annual Difference Makers program is sponsored by Burkhart Pizzanelli, P.C., TommyCar Auto Group, and Westfield Bank.
SPRINGFIELD — Garvey Communication Associates Inc. (GCAi), through its video production subsidiary New England Corporate Videos (NECV), will debut its 2026 Difference Makers honoree video series at the annual BusinessWest Difference Makers Gala on Tuesday, April 7 at the Log Cabin in Holyoke. This marks the fourth consecutive year GCAi and NECV have served as the official video production team for the prestigious regional recognition program.
Now in its fourth year of partnership, GCAi once again collaborated with BusinessWest Editor Joe Bednar, who served as interviewer across eight on-camera sessions. The production team created 16 individual edits from those interviews — half to be screened in long form at the April 7 event, and the remaining half to be used for ongoing promotional purposes.
This year, GCAi broke from tradition by expanding beyond its downtown Springfield studio on the 24th floor of Tower Square. In collaboration with honoree Darby O’Brien, the team arranged to film a portion of the interviews on location at Food 101 in South Hadley.
“Darby and I came up with the idea to shoot at Food 101,” said John Garvey, president of GCAi. “We felt it would add a whole new element to the interviews — and it did. Nobody puts Darby into a studio, so we knew we had to find a setting that would suit his personality and creativity. We are very appreciative of Alan Anischik and his crew at Food 101 for accommodating us and our idea.”
The Difference Makers program, launched by BusinessWest in 2009, recognizes individuals, organizations, businesses, and institutions making a meaningful impact across the communities of Western Mass. This year’s honorees represent a diverse cross-section of the region’s most dedicated civic and business leaders. They include:
• Ryan Alekman and Robert DiTusa, partners, Alekman DiTusa, LLC;
• Rachelle Hannoush, director of Youth, Violence Prevention, and Court Support Programs, YWCA of Western Massachusetts;
• Jess Miller, comedian and founder, The Kind Squad;
• Edward Sokolowski, managing partner and wealth advisor, Pioneer Valley Financial Group;
• Margaret Tantillo, executive director, O’Dell Women’s Center; and
• Zeno Temple, founder, Just Us Movement.
“These are incredible individuals, and we are thrilled to help tell their story,” Garvey said. “We are happy to be a part of Difference Makers every year and are proud to help amplify the contributions of honorees who serve as an inspiration to us all.”
For more information or to register to attend the gala, click here.
SPRINGFIELD — Tickets are still available for the 18th annual Difference Makers awards gala, hosted by BusinessWest. The event will take place on Tuesday, April 7 from 5:30 to 9 p.m. at the Log Cabin in Holyoke. Tickets cost $95 per person, and tables of 10-12 are available. They can be purchased by clicking here.
The Difference Makers class of 2026 are profiled in the Feb. 16 issue of BusinessWest and at businesswest.com. This year’s honorees are:
• Ryan Alekman and Robert DiTusa, partners, Alekman DiTusa, LLC;
• Rachelle Hannoush, director of Youth, Violence Prevention, and Court Support Programs, YWCA of Western Massachusetts;
• Jess Miller, comedian and founder, The Kind Squad;
• Edward Sokolowski, managing partner and wealth advisor, Pioneer Valley Financial Group;
• Margaret Tantillo, executive director, O’Dell Women’s Center; and
• Zeno Temple, founder, Just Us Movement.
BusinessWest launched the Difference Makers program in 2009 to recognize and celebrate the work of individuals, groups, businesses, and institutions that are positively impacting the communities of Western Mass. The 18th annual Difference Makers program is sponsored by Burkhart Pizzanelli, P.C., TommyCar Auto Group, and Westfield Bank.
For more information, call Natasha Mercado-Santana, Marketing and Events Manager, at (413) 781-8600, ext. 100, or email [email protected].
SPRINGFIELD — Tickets are now on sale for the 18th annual Difference Makers awards gala, hosted by BusinessWest. The event will take place on Tuesday, April 7 from 5:30 to 9 p.m. at the Log Cabin in Holyoke. Tickets cost $95 per person, and tables of 10-12 are available. They can be purchased by clicking here.
The Difference Makers class of 2026 are profiled in the Feb. 16 issue of BusinessWest and at businesswest.com. This year’s honorees are:
• Ryan Alekman and Robert DiTusa, partners, Alekman DiTusa, LLC;
• Rachelle Hannoush, director of Youth, Violence Prevention, and Court Support Programs, YWCA of Western Massachusetts;
• Jess Miller, comedian and founder, The Kind Squad;
• Edward Sokolowski, managing partner and wealth advisor, Pioneer Valley Financial Group;
• Margaret Tantillo, executive director, O’Dell Women’s Center; and
• Zeno Temple, founder, Just Us Movement.
BusinessWest launched the Difference Makers program in 2009 to recognize and celebrate the work of individuals, groups, businesses, and institutions that are positively impacting the communities of Western Mass. The 18th annual Difference Makers program is sponsored by Burkhart Pizzanelli, P.C., TommyCar Auto Group, and Westfield Bank.
For more information, call Natasha Mercado-Santana, Marketing and Events Manager, at (413) 781-8600, ext. 100, or email [email protected].
SPRINGFIELD — Tickets are now on sale for the 18th annual Difference Makers awards gala, hosted by BusinessWest. The event will take place on Tuesday, April 7 from 5:30 to 9 p.m. at the Log Cabin in Holyoke. Tickets cost $95 per person, and tables of 10-12 are available. They can be purchased by clicking here.
The Difference Makers class of 2026 are profiled in the Feb. 16 issue of BusinessWest and at businesswest.com. This year’s honorees are:
• Ryan Alekman and Robert DiTusa, partners, Alekman DiTusa, LLC;
• Rachelle Hannoush, director of Youth, Violence Prevention, and Court Support Programs, YWCA of Western Massachusetts;
• Jess Miller, comedian and founder, The Kind Squad;
• Edward Sokolowski, managing partner and wealth advisor, Pioneer Valley Financial Group;
• Margaret Tantillo, executive director, O’Dell Women’s Center; and
• Zeno Temple, founder, Just Us Movement.
BusinessWest launched the Difference Makers program in 2009 to recognize and celebrate the work of individuals, groups, businesses, and institutions that are positively impacting the communities of Western Mass. The 18th annual Difference Makers program is sponsored by Burkhart Pizzanelli, P.C., TommyCar Auto Group, and Westfield Bank.
For more information, call Natasha Mercado-Santana, Marketing and Events Manager, at (413) 781-8600, ext. 100, or email [email protected].
SPRINGFIELD — Tickets are now on sale for the 18th annual Difference Makers awards gala, hosted by BusinessWest. The event will take place on Tuesday, April 7 from 5:30 to 9 p.m. at the Log Cabin in Holyoke. Tickets cost $95 per person, and tables of 10-12 are available. They can be purchased by clicking here.
The Difference Makers class of 2026 will be introduced in the Feb. 16 issue of BusinessWest. This year’s honorees are:
• Ryan Alekman and Robert DiTusa, partners, Alekman DiTusa, LLC;
• Rachelle Hannoush, director of Youth, Violence Prevention, and Court Support Programs, YWCA of Western Massachusetts;
• Jess Miller, comedian and founder, The Kind Squad;
• Edward Sokolowski, managing partner and wealth advisor, Pioneer Valley Financial Group;
• Margaret Tantillo, executive director, O’Dell Women’s Center; and
• Zeno Temple, founder, Just Us Movement.
BusinessWest launched the Difference Makers program in 2009 to recognize and celebrate the work of individuals, groups, businesses, and institutions that are positively impacting the communities of Western Massachusetts. The 18th annual Difference Makers program is sponsored by Burkart Pizzanelli, P.C., TommyCar Auto Group, and Westfield Bank.
For more information, call Natasha Mercado-Santana, Marketing and Events Manager, at (413) 781-8600, ext. 100, or email [email protected].
Zeno Temple played football at Western New England University.
He started on the defensive line and eventually moved to offensive guard. He played all four years he was at the school, and the teams he played on did well, winning the Conference of New England title each year and advancing to the Division III playoffs.
Temple, who spent several years working as a community safety outreach specialist at the Hampden County District Attorney’s Office, says he takes a number of lessons from his playing days into his current work — both as a senior legal analyst with the law firm Royal Parker Spruce, working toward becoming a lawyer (he’s on track to graduate from Western New England University School of Law in May and envisions specializing in employment law); and with a nonprofit he launched called the Just Us Movement.
In both cases, he strives to do something his former head coach, Keith Emery, or ‘Coach E,’ always told his players.
“Human rights and civil rights are not things where you can sit back and be like, ‘OK, I have those, and everything will be fine.’ These are things that always have to be advocated for and fought for.”
“He told us, ‘you gotta show up every day and get one better,’” Temple recalled, noting that the one refers to 1%. “He said it every day — ‘one better, one better.’ I keep that handy and ready because it’s true; I try to get one better in some aspect of my life every day.”
This philosophy, if you will, of continually getting 1% better is reflected in the broad mission of the Just Us Movement — to empower individuals, strengthen communities, and dismantle systemic barriers through legal education, health and wellness initiatives, and dynamic leadership programs — and its specific initiatives.
They fall into three categories — education, law, and health — and include everything from a program called Nourish the Neighborhood, through which Temple and his team have served hundreds of families with fresh meals; to a series of Know Your Rights workshops, free webinars covering topics from immigration encounters to mental health in the workplace; as well as the distribution of Red Cards, pocket-sized constitutional rights guides.
Temple is also establishing what he calls the Emerging Leaders Council, a pipeline for young professionals and students entering fields like law, education, and healthcare. It’s designed to cultivate the next generation of justice-driven leaders, he said — people who will carry forward the values of equity, service, and community advocacy.
“Zeno is one of Hampden County’s emerging leaders, whose work is transforming how communities access support, advocacy, and empowerment,” wrote Khadijah Allen, the Just Us Movement’s chief of staff. “His leadership reflects a clear vision — that justice and community well-being must be accessible to everyone, not just those who know how to navigate complex systems. That belief is the foundation of his work and the driving force behind the movement he leads today.
“Zeno is a Difference Maker because he doesn’t just witness inequities — he responds to them with action,” Allen went on. “Through the Just Us Movement, he has built a model of leadership that uplifts, empowers, and unites communities. His work is not only changing individual lives; it is shaping the future of justice and advocacy in Hampden County.”
Zeno Temple says the Just Us Movement aims to empower individuals, strengthen communities, and dismantle systemic barriers. Photo by Bob Zemba, Simple Truth Imaging
Reflecting on what’s been done in the year since he started the nonprofit — and the work still to come — Temple said there are many needs within the community, including equal access to justice.
“It sounds so simple, and it sounds so basic, but it’s true — justice as a whole needs to be accessible to everyone, period. And I don’t think that we’re doing a good enough job of that as a society, and my goal is to make that a reality.”
Knowing the Score
Temple grew up in Philadelphia and recalls that his early aspiration was to become an architect.
“As the years went on, I got more in tune with current events and things that were going on, like Trayvon Martin,” he said, referring to the case of the Florida teenager shot and killed by a neighborhood watch member who claimed self-defense and was eventually acquitted of second-degree murder and manslaughter. “I was glued to the TV and, for the first time, saw what was going on.
“I started becoming more interested in the law,” he went on, adding that this interest, while keen, took a back seat to athletics. He played football in high school and in his senior year commenced a search for schools where he could continue playing.
“I visited a ton of schools and fell in love with Western New England,” he said, adding that, while playing, he also majored in law and society and became a life-skills mentor to younger players on the football team.
“When the freshmen would come in as athletes, we’d be the people to look out for them, help them out, check in on them, make sure their grades were good, and get them any resources they needed,” he recalled, adding that these experiences helped inspire his advocacy efforts to come later.
After graduating in 2020, at the height of the pandemic, he took some time off, went back to Philadelphia, did some policy work, and helped with a few political campaigns, before getting an offer to return to Springfield and work in the DA’s office as a community safety outreach specialist.
In that role, he worked as part of a small unit that worked within the community on several initiatives, everything from school visits to talk with students on a variety of subjects to court tours, by which young people became acquainted with the legal system, from arraignment to trial.
“Zeno is a Difference Maker because he doesn’t just witness inequities — he responds to them with action.”
“It was a cool job … we went into schools across Hampden County, getting to students early and doing prevention work,” Temple explained. “We talked about internet safety, alcohol and drug abuse, driving safety, and more. We had those discussions in big group settings, but also smaller sessions as well.
“Having that connection with the students was amazing,” he went on. “Being out in front of 100 high school students or middle school students and talking about important topics … it was not just educating the students, but also educating myself, trying to keep up on what’s new and what’s happening so we can be most productive and most helpful to the community. It gave me the opportunity to work on my public speaking skills, while also finding lanes to grow as an individual.”
Temple started attending law school at night in 2022, and is closing in on his degree, with intentions to focus on employment law and civil rights. As a paralegal and senior legal analyst at Royal Parker Spruce, he is gaining additional learning experiences while sitting in on mediations and other sessions.
Inspired by several factors — everything from the example set by his mother, a social worker, to the work he’d become involved with at the DA’s office, to various, and obvious, needs within the community, he started the Just Us Movement roughly a year ago.
As noted earlier, the Chicopee-based agency has a broad mission and service area (Western Mass. and Northern Conn.) and several focus points.
These include Nourish the Neighborhood; a Community Earth Day initiative (tree planting and neighborhood beautification); virtual programs to connect community members with information and resources; a back-to-school teacher supply drive in Hartford; participation in the Dignity Grows Partnership, a national initiative that provides hygiene and menstrual care products to individuals experiencing period poverty; a Black Balloon Day webinar on March 6 to join others in honoring those lost to overdose; and more.
The ‘Rights’ Thing to Do
Each of these initiatives grew out of need and a desire to meet it, Temple said, adding that the Nourish the Neighborhood effort is a good example. It was inspired by efforts undertaken by a friend at shelters in Philadelphia.
“I was thinking, ‘we should definitely do something like that up here,” he recalled, adding that the first effort, one that provided meals to more than 70 people — with his mother, also a caterer, doing most of the cooking — was in Hartford, with others to follow in the 413.
“We knew it was the right thing to do and that we were on the right track,” he said, adding that two more events followed over Thanksgiving and Christmas, with more planned for this year.
Another key element of his mission is education, including Know Your Rights seminars. These are free webinars on topics such as “Bridging the Gap: Access to Justice and Community Engagement,” “Know Your Rights: Law Enforcement and Immigration Encounters,” and “Mental Health in the Professional World.”
“We have some amazing people come in and speak on these panels — judges, attorneys, people who work in the community,” he said, adding that there have been seven of these webinars to date, with other subjects ranging from employment law matters to record sealing and expungement, and they are available on YouTube and various social media platforms.
The most recent offering was on Feb. 7, a program on housing featuring officials with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination.
And the response has been very positive, he said, adding that several dozen people have attended the live webinars, and there are usually energetic rounds of Q&A at the end of each one.
Behind these events is the simple philosophy that information is power and that access to justice and the rights that many take for granted is in many cases not equal.
“Human rights and civil rights are not things where you can sit back and be like, ‘OK, I have those, and everything will be fine,’” he said, adding that recent events in Minneapolis and elsewhere have driven home this point. “These are things that always have to be advocated for and fought for, and right now is the most important time to have people speak up for human rights. We need to realize that we all matter.
“The easiest thing to say would be, ‘I want peace and happiness, and things like that,’” he went on. “But we also have to realize that history repeats itself, and we all have to do a better job of learning from history, in all facets of life.”
Looking ahead, Temple wants to keep growing the Just Us Movement and broadening its impact. “I want us to be an organization that reflects the community we serve, and I want it to be an organization that will serve the community based on access to justice.”
This brings him all the way back to that notion of getting 1% better. It’s a personal goal, of course, but also something everyone involved in the Just Us Movement strives for.
“That’s what we do here — 1% better,” he said. “If you try to shoot for 1% better every day for a year, and you reach that, at the end of the year, you’ll be doing well.”
That mindset certainly helps explain why Temple is a Difference Maker.
Margaret Tantillo has spent her entire career in the nonprofit space, much of it with the Girl Scouts, and then for almost a decade leading Dress for Success Western Massachusetts.
“I’ve always worked in organizations in support of women and girls — and that was purposeful. I had a passion for it,” she said.
“There were some experiences that led me to understand that women are treated differently, and that there’s a need for women to support each other,” she added, citing a persistent wage gap between men and women as one example.
“Women take the more responsibility for childcare, for elder support. So there are benefits to lifting women up — especially the women that we serve,” she went on, referring to her latest role, which she accepted in early 2024, as executive director of the O’Dell Women’s Center, a philanthropic organization that supports low-income women in and around Springfield in a variety of ways.
“I’ve always said that not everybody gets dealt the same cards, and my hope, personally, is to sort of even the playing field,” Tantillo explained. “I could have just as easily been born into a household that was not well-off financially, and that would have been my barrier to overcome. But the hand I was dealt was middle-class, and there was no question I was going to go to college.
“Margaret’s dedication ensures that women and families have stability and access to essential resources during difficult times.”
“So for me personally, it’s like, where’s the fairness?” she went on. “We’re all getting different opportunities, and and they’re just not equal, so by working in women’s organizations, what can I do to even the playing field?”
The O’Dell Women’s Center was inspired by Connie O’Dell, who served for more than 40 years as a maternity nurse at Providence Hospital and dedicated her life to caring for women with dignity, compassion, and respect. Founded in 2023, the center occupies a 10,000-square-foot facility in the heart of Springfield.
Its most visible arm is its foundation, which provides grants, typically ranging from $10,000 to $75,000, to local nonprofits that advance educational, workforce, and career development opportunities for low-income women, as well as nonprofit organizations that address systemic barriers, such as food insecurity, childcare access, transportation, and housing instability.
The foundation distributed $550,000 in 2025 to support women and families across Springfield, and an estimated $750,000 in grants will be awarded in 2026.
The center also houses Dress for Success Western Massachusetts, which was displaced from its longtime home at the Eastfield Mall when that complex was about to be torn down and redeveloped. The O’Dell Women’s Center offered it about 5,000 square feet of space — more than $80,000 in free rent annually — to continue its work without interruption, said Jessica Roncarati-Howe, who succeeded Tantillo as head of the organization in 2024 — and is one of two individuals who nominated her as a Difference Maker.
Margaret Tantillo says she understands Springfield and its needs, and is grateful to be in a place where she can make an impact. Photo by Bob Zemba, Simple Truth Imaging
“This single act ensured that hundreds of women in Springfield and surrounding communities could still access professional clothing, employment coaching, career development, programming, and the support networks that help them thrive,” Roncarati-Howe said. “The O’Dell Women’s Center did not just give us space; they gave us stability, dignity, and the ability to keep serving women who rely on us every day.
“What impresses us most is that this generosity is not an exception — it is the model,” she added. “The Odell Women’s Center provides free gathering and meeting space for women’s groups and is actively seeking additional nonprofits to join the building at low or no cost. Their goal is to create a true community hub where women can access multiple resources under one roof, reducing barriers and strengthening the social and economic fabric of Springfield.”
“We’re hoping to see quality relationships that align with our values of treating women with compassion, not assuming what other women need, but kind of walking hand in hand to provide that support.”
Mydalis Vera, founder of Guerrera Writer and a volunteer at the center, noted its support of food pantries during a particularly challenging time for food insecurity, pointing out that the center distributed $100,000 in emergency support to Springfield-area pantries late last year, helping families navigate the pressures of SNAP benefit changes and a temporary federal government shutdown.
“Margaret’s dedication ensures that women and families have stability and access to essential resources during difficult times,” Vera said, adding that Tantillo also spearheaded a successful diaper drive, partnering with local agencies to collect more than 40,000 diapers and registering more than 200 families to receive this essential support. “Her tireless commitment to uplifting women and families, providing practical assistance, and fostering long-term stability truly sets her apart as a leader and changemaker in the community.”
Spreading the Wealth
In her former role as executive director of Dress for Success Western Massachusetts, Tantillo increased the budget sevenfold and grew the organization from one program to five, all in the service of helping unemployed and underemployed women achieve economic independence. And, as Roncarati-Howe noted, it was a natural fit to operate out of the O’Dell building in downtown Springfield.
“Dress for Success is its own nonprofit; they have their own board of directors and run their own thing,” Tantillo explained. “We have a very collaborative relationship, and now it’s like, ‘what else can we bring in to support women?’ It’s a slow build. In some ways, we’re providing the next step, the next circle of resources for women.”
The funding for Dress for Success’ rent-free tenancy comes from the O’Dell Women’s Center’s family foundation, she added.
Margaret Tantillo says it’s important to lift women up, and she’s spent much of her career doing just that. Photo by Bob Zemba, Simple Truth Imaging
“These partnerships reflect our belief that economic stability is built through coordinated, community-driven solutions,” said Keely Krantz, founder and president of the O’Dell Women’s Center Foundation. “When women have access to basic needs, education, and career opportunities, entire families and communities are strengthened.”
To demonstrate how the O’Dell grants target the upward mobility of women, the 2025 grantees included:
• Bay Path University, to support a new emergency assistance initiative for Springfield-based students facing unexpected crises, including housing instability, transportation challenges, and lack of basic necessities, helping women remain enrolled and complete their education;
• Dress for Success Western Massachusetts, to provide a continuum of career support, including professional attire, career readiness, coaching, and advancement services that help women achieve long-term financial independence;
• Girls Inc. of the Valley, to continue supporting the Eureka! Program, a no-cost, five-year STEM initiative that empowers girls to envision themselves as part of the future workforce through hands-on learning and sustained mentorship;
• The Gray House, to strengthen adult education services for low-income migrants and refugees, including ESOL (English for speakers of other languages) instruction paired with essential life and job skills training;
• It Takes a Village, to expand basic needs programming that fills critical service gaps for low-income women and families, helping remove survival-level barriers to economic stability;
• MassHire Holyoke, to implement the GLOW program in Springfield, a holistic workforce initiative combining intensive case management, job placement, and wrap-around supports to address barriers such as childcare, transportation, housing instability, and digital skill gaps;
• South End Community Center, to provide out-of-school programming that offers safe, reliable childcare through after-school, vacation, summer, and school-closure programs, supporting parents’ ability to work and pursue education;
• Tech Foundry, to deliver digital literacy instruction, professional development, and career mapping for women participating through YWCA programming; and
• United Way of Pioneer Valley, to expand direct services for underserved women by increasing food pantry access and strengthening Thrive Financial Wellness programming through individualized financial coaching.
As the center’s executive director, Tantillo ensures that the grants are directed in the most impactful ways and that the building’s physical resources are used responsibly, and most of those efforts specifically help women navigate barriers to stability and build sustainable futures, she explained.
“I understand Springfield and its needs, and I work very closely with the founder, who is one of the kindest, smartest women I’ver ever met,” she said of Krantz. For example, “with that emergency food funding, I said, ‘this is what’s going on with SNAP. I think we need to do this.’ And she said, ‘yes, that makes sense.’”
The decision wound up putting the planned grant outlay for 2025 $50,000 over the original budget, but the issue was deemed an urgent one. So Tantillo went about approaching area food pantries directly to get a sense of how many people they serve and what their needs were, then facilitated the grants.
While most of the center’s work focuses on providing a path to academic stability through career advancement and education, the $100,000 outlay for food pantries isn’t as much of an outlier among the other grants as it might seem.
“In the organizations that we provided funding for, you’ll see those [career] paths as well as some basic needs, because there are a lot of barriers for women,” Tantillo explained. “Like, we didn’t necessarily fund childcare, but we fund out-of-school programming, so when women are working, there’s a safe space for their children to go. So we’re going from immediate needs, basic needs, to supporting long-term opportunities.”
Walking Together
As part of that effort to connect women with education and career opportunities, the center is piloting something called the Bridging Navigator Peer to Peer mentorship program, which pairs mentors with lived experience with low-income women to help connect them with resources and pathways that lead to educational and career advancement.
One of those navigators is Areliz Barbosa, an assistant professor at Bay Path University and one of BusinessWest’s Healthcare Heroes last fall, who has often spoken about the dire challenges she has had to overcome in life.
“I was shocked to hear that she slept on a bench for a little while,” Tantillo said. “We’re going to pair her with a woman who may be in a situation where she can’t see her future — because she certainly has achieved a professional level of success.”
If the pilot expands, she added, “we’re hoping to see quality relationships that align with our values of treating women with compassion, not assuming what other women need, but kind of walking hand in hand to provide that support. The Bridging Navigator program will probably help women access social services or steer them toward Dress for Success or encourage them to take a training or go to community college to get that certificate.”
The O’Dell Women’s Center also offers free space for clients and community nonprofits to use, including a small, private conference room; an office with several desks; and a large, central meeting or presentation space. Tantillo said the center has also forged a partnership with MassHire Hampden County Workforce Board, which will physically place a representative in the building.
Meanwhile, she added, with nonprofits facing a tough funding landscape, she would like to bring area organizations together to determine what efficiencies exist and how they can complement each other’s services.
These are just some of the ways Tantillo brings people and resources together with the general goal of elevating women — which she has done, in some form, over her entire career.
“I just provide the opportunity, and people kind of join in,” she said. And by doing so, she continues to be a true Difference Maker.
Julie Quink says it’s easy for accountants to get involved in community.
Indeed, she said, there’s no shortage of small nonprofits who need CPAs on their boards to help handle the books, and over the years, she’s done some of that, as almost everyone in the profession has.
And she encourages all members of the team at Burkhart Pizzanelli, P.C., the firm she serves as managing principal, to get involved as well — and, when possible, to go much further than crunching numbers for nonprofits and regional institutions, although that’s important, too. And here, she sets the tone.
She’s affiliated with several professional groups, such as the Massachusetts Society of CPAs and the Assoc. of Certified Fraud Examiners; sits on some boards — those at Baystate Health, Greater Springfield Senior Services, Monson Savings Bank, and Square One, among others — and serves as treasurer for the Quaboag Hills Chamber of Commerce, I Found Light Against All Odds, and the Estate Planning Council of Hampden County.
“One of the things that Square One does is allow us, when the coats come in, to help the kids choose their coat, and some of our team members take part. It’s a completely amazing event for us, and over the years, it has helped the team share my commitment to that organization because we can see that the little work we do for this fundraising really has an impact on these kids.”
But she does, indeed, go further, such as with Square One’s Operation Warm, a program that provides winter coats for kids; she has made the firm the sponsor of that initiative and inspired team members and clients alike to support those efforts.
“One of the things that Square One does is allow us, when the coats come in, to help the kids choose their coat, and some of our team members take part,” she noted. “It’s a completely amazing event for us, and over the years, it has helped the team share my commitment to that organization because we can see that the little work we do for this fundraising really has an impact on these kids.”
Julie Quink with Burkhart Pizzanelli co-owner Deborah Penzias. Photo by Bob Zemba, Simple Truth Imaging
With that, she tells the story of a now-retired staff member at Burkhart Pizzanelli who had a sign outside his office that read ‘Grumpy Old Man.’
“He was self-proclaimed,” Quink said. “He went one year when the team met with the kids to hand out coats, and he was on his knees with these little people, and he had the biggest smile on his face. And I just thought, ‘if there was nothing else worth it in this whole entire thing, just seeing the look on his face and the joy that doing what he was doing brought … that’s what it’s really about for me.’”
Quink’s success with creating such moments is one of many reasons why she will be among those honored as Difference Makers in 2026. Others include the way she serves as a mentor and role model to those on her staff, creating an atmosphere that is more like a family than a business.
“Julie believes that we live and work in a community, and everyone has a very important role to play,” said Rebecca Connolly, director of the Auditing Department, who nominated Quink for this award. “She takes her role as a business owner and as a role model — not only for her staff, but her family and clients — seriously.
“At work, we joke that we don’t think Julie sleeps because she is so busy with helping small business owners with their businesses, helping them to grow their businesses, navigating tough financial times, while coming out on the other side feeling more supported and in better financial position,” Connolly added, noting that she does all this while serving on several boards, supporting the initiatives of several nonprofits, and serving as adjunct faculty in the MBA accounting program at Elms College.
Quink says she enjoys all aspects of this balancing act and finds the time for all of it, even during tax season — which isn’t really a season anymore, she noted, saying, “it never ends.”
“I can tell you personally that I take away much more than I give when it comes to organizations I belong to and work with, as a board member or even as a volunteer,” she told BusinessWest. “It makes everything worthwhile when you see the impact that you have on someone else’s life.”
Julie Quink spends a moment with a Square One student as winter coats are distributed as part of Operation Warm.
Overall, Quink excels at listening, responding, and being there for people — in all aspects of her life and every corner of the community.
It All Adds Up
Quink told BusinessWest that, while in high school, she developed an affinity for numbers and accounting.
“My accounting professor recognized that I had a talent in that area — I wasn’t even focused on it, really — and urged me to explore it,” she recalled. “It was interesting to me, and I understood it; I’m not a scientist, and I could never be a medical professional — I don’t have the stomach for that sort of thing — so accounting was it.”
She considered UMass Amherst and Elms College, and chose the much smaller, much more intimate setting, and never regretted that decision, becoming the first in her family to graduate from college.
“I’m a firm believer that you end up where you’re supposed to be,” she said, adding that she enjoyed the small class sizes there. “In hindsight, had I gone to a large institution, I probably would have gotten lost in the system. It was a benefit to me, and that’s one of the reasons I teach at Elms.”
She started in the field as senior accountant at what was then KPMG Peat Marwick in Springfield and later worked for 17 years at J.M. O’Brien & Co., P.C. in Springfield as director of Audits and Business Issues.
She came to West Springfield-based Burkhart Pizzanelli, now celebrating its 40th anniversary, in 2011 as part of a succession plan, serving first as senior manager of Audit/Consulting before becoming a principal in 2013 and then managing principal in 2015. She’s now spent 35 years in the profession and has seen a good amount of change, especially when it comes to culture.
“When I came on, you were expected to work long hours, you were expected to travel … it was just something you knew was part of the job; it was expected of you, and you did it,” she explained. “Now, it’s a lot different in terms of culture; we’re really focused on our team members here, their wellness, their well-being, their career trajectory. It’s really come a long way.
“Quality of life is really important to the younger generations, understandably, and the meaningfulness of what they do is important,” she went on. “We’ve had to adapt to all that.”
Elaborating, she said Burkhart Pizzanelli was at what she called the “front end of that curve,” which is one of the things that attracted her to the firm. And as managing principal, she is determined to stay ahead of that curve.
“What’s really important for us is balance,” she told BusinessWest, noting that there is now a staff of 25. “I think we, as a leadership group here, are really in tune with what’s impacting our team, and we can make changes and adapt workloads quickly if we see that someone’s overwhelmed.”
Beyond balance, she and others on the leadership team are focused on mentoring and being positive role models for younger staff members.
“All the leaders here have a strong desire to make sure our team is happy, growing in their positions, exposed to new opportunities … so we all take mentoring very seriously,” she said. “If I were to look at where I spend my time during the day, I’d say maybe an hour or two a day is spent in conversation about ‘how can we do this better? Where are we at? And how can I be a resource for you?’ We want to be hearing what’s going on, and we want to be adapting where we need to make change, and that takes a lot of listening. So I like to think I spend a lot of time listening.
From left: Julie Quink with team members Sarah Lapolice, Rebecca Connolly, and Deborah Penzias. Photo by Bob Zemba, Simple Truth Imaging
“If I want people to come to me as a leader with a problem, an issue, something I can solve, my advice … I must be authentic, and they need to feel like they’re being heard,” she went on. “I’m really focused on what’s important to them because, if it’s important for them, then it becomes important for me.”
Warm Thoughts
This ability to listen and act on what she’s hearing is one of the many reasons why Connolly considers Quink, the tone-setter for the company, a Difference Maker.
“She really believes in family — she remembers everything about you,” she said. “No matter if it’s April 15 and a client needs her or something has happened to a staff member health-wise, her first response is, ‘do what you need to do; we’ll cover you.’ That’s what we do — we’re a team, and we support one another.”
Indeed, Connolly said, if there is one word that perhaps best sums up Quink and all aspects of her life, it would be ‘supportive.’ That’s true when it comes to the team at work, clients, her students at Elms, and the community.
“I can tell you personally that I take away much more than I give when it comes to organizations I belong to and work with, as a board member or even as a volunteer. It makes everything worthwhile when you see the impact that you have on someone else’s life.”
With that last realm, she stressed that she gets involved with agencies and causes that she’s passionate about, and she encourages others at the firm to take that same approach. “I tell them, ‘don’t just volunteer and not feel like you’re getting meaning out of your volunteering.’”
This sentiment explains why she became involved with healthcare organizations such as Baystate Health — which is going through a challenging time, as all hospitals and healthcare systems are — as well as Greater Springfield Senior Services and Square One.
“I’m on the board of Greater Springfield Senior Services because of the really great work they do with seniors in the catchment area and folks that really need the services we can provide and connect them to,” she said, explaining that she has chaired this board for several years now. “Especially as our population ages, we want people to be able to age at home if they like.”
Julie Quink, left, and other Burkhart Pizzanelli team members take part in a program run by the Parish Cupboard, which provides meals and groceries to individuals and families in need.
She was also drawn to I Found Light Against All Odds, an organization that helps secure housing for homeless young women — efforts that made it a Difference Maker in 2022.
“The need exists, probably more than we recognize or are aware of,” Quink said. “Homelessness is a real issue among young women, and that’s what drew me to that organization; we’re actively working toward increasing programming and creating more supports for women in that age group and in those insecure situations. Our goal is to get them off the streets or out of the situation that is harmful for them.”
With Square One, she was approached by now-retired president and CEO Joan Kagan to join the board, and almost immediately started looking for ways to get involved on a deeper level.
She recalled a conversation with Kris Allard, the agency’s vice president of Development and Communication, about the coats program.
“They had someone who worked with them prior who was backing out of the coat campaign, and she approached us about sponsoring that effort,” Quink noted. “We sat across this conference room table, and both had tears in our eyes as we talked about the conditions these kids are dealing with.
“I said, ‘sure, we’ll do what we can — we’ll be a sponsor,’” she went on, adding that it soon became a firm-wide initiative, with fundraising and then and distributing the coats.
The fundraising goal this year was $5,000, she said, noting that more than $10,000 was raised, enough to buy more than 400 coats.
“Over the years, the campaign has evolved to where our clients have gotten involved, and they remind us to send them information on the coat campaign because they want to donate,” she continued. “It’s really become important to us, but also our clients.”
And it’s just one example of how Quink and members of the firm get involved beyond handling the books for nonprofits. And another example of why this role model is also a Difference Maker.
While talking about the culture of giving back that permeates their Springfield-based personal injury law firm, Ryan Alekman and Robert DiTusa brought up a new tradition — one that has been part of their last two Thanksgiving potluck lunches, and will continue going forward.
“Every staff member gets $100 with a letter that says, ‘you can do whatever you want with this $100. You can put it in your pocket, no shame; everyone’s got their own needs. But we ask that you consider paying it forward,’” Alekman explained.
A month later, at the firm’s holiday party, employees are asked to share, if they’d like, what they did with the money.
“Invariably, everybody has done something to give back to another person. Somebody will say, ‘I took that $100 and added my own $100 and I gave it away.’ And everybody’s clapping because they’re so excited that they work with people who think that way.”
DiTusa added, “it always shocks me, the diversity of things that people do. Somebody gave it to a stranger; they literally saw a stranger in need at a store, who didn’t look like they had much, and they paid it forward right there on the spot. They said the person was in tears. Other people say, ‘my church has a charity drive, or a toy drive.’ Somebody else said, ‘I brought my kid to Target and told him we’re buying toys today, but none of them are for you.’ They were showing their kid how to give back.
“The community has really embraced us; we have a very successful business, we help a lot of people, and that, by itself, is great. But watching everybody who works here have that same value set of wanting to make the world a better place … that’s fantastic.”
“It really does warm my heart to know how many lives you’re able to touch just by sending people out with $100 to do some good,” he said — just one way in which giving back to the community has become firmly embedded in the company culture.
“We’re very fortunate,” Alekman said. “The community has really embraced us; we have a very successful business, we help a lot of people, and that, by itself, is great. But watching everybody who works here have that same value set of wanting to make the world a better place … that’s fantastic. These are incredible people that we work with.”
That emphasis on giving back is something potential hires understand before they join the firm, Alekman and DiTusa told BusinessWest; it takes many forms, and it’s something that has been honed over time. And because these two partners set the tone, they’ve earned a spot among the Difference Makers class of 2026.
Rob DiTusa says giving back to the community has become an infectious part of the law firm’s culture. Photo by Bob Zemba, Simple Truth Imaging
Alekman thought back to the tornado of 2011 as a time when much of this community involvement was coalescing. They were already supporting nonprofits like the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts and the Red Cross, but the tornado threw the need into stark relief.
“The Red Cross reached out and asked me, as somebody who was known in the Latino community because I’ve been on Spanish TV and radio for many years, if I would be a face that people would trust, and go on the radio and explain what the Red Cross was doing for people who had been harmed by the tornado,” he recalled. “So Rob and I did that. We raised a significant amount of money for the Red Cross back in 2011.”
The firm has also been a longtime supporter of the WillPower Foundation, which helps families with different abilities, and Revitalize Community Development Corp. (CDC), not only giving money to the latter, but sending teams of employees to its #GreenNFit neighborhood rebuild days, helping provide home repairs for area residents in need.
Chelsea McGrath — who met Alekman and DiTusa in 2019 when she was executive director of the WillPower Foundation, and is now vice president of Operations & Finance for Revitalize CDC — nominated them as Difference Makers.
“They are extremely financially generous, donating extensively to many nonprofits in the area and abroad,” McGrath said, citing the aforementioned nonprofits as well as Square One, Rachel’s Table, Community Legal Aid, Ronald McDonald House, Suit Up Springfield, and New North Citizens’ Council, a few of the dozens of nonprofits the firm supports.
“During the COVID-19 pandemic, when WillPower’s funding was significantly limited, I asked them to increase their already very generous annual contribution, and they did not hesitate to do so,” McGrath added. “However, they don’t just write a check and go about their day. They are extremely generous with their time and commitment to community service as well.”
But the partners are always sharing credit with their team.
“They enjoy it. They feel like they’re part of it. They see what we’re doing, and then they engage in it,” DiTusa said. “When it comes to giving, some people are natural givers — they’ve grown up with it, maybe they knew somebody that was philanthropic and they want to emulate that, or maybe they were helped by a charity at some point in their life and they thought, ‘I’m going to give back when I have my opportunity.’ Whatever drives you to it, you get there.
“But sometimes,” he added, “you can show other people how to give, and it’s really infectious.”
Courting Success
Alekman has been practicing law for 28 years, while DiTusa has been in business for more than 30 — and at one point was renting an office from the former. They found they got along well, so in 2010, they decided to team up.
“When I was renting space, we started to do some cases together, and we discovered that our skill sets were so complementary that we made a really good team,” DiTusa added, explaining that he specializes in litigation, and Alekman prefers negotiating with insurance companies and pressing for settlements.
“So putting those two skill sets together made a whole lot of sense,” he added. “And we both love what we do; not all lawyers can say that.
Ryan Alekman says it’s gratifying helping people who call on their worst days to find fair resolutions. Photo by Bob Zemba, Simple Truth Imaging
“When I look back at the past 15 years, the most satisfying thing is the fact that we’ve grown this firm from two lawyers to seven lawyers, and from five people to 25. That’s something I didn’t necessarily imagine. It’s been incredibly satisfying to be able to grow something very small to what I think is a pretty decent-sized firm, and be able to serve as many people as we do.”
DiTusa said he was drawn to personal injury law because he’s always considered himself an underdog and wants to advocate for people like that.
“As a lawyer, I see myself as somebody who stands up for underdogs, somebody who’s willing to fight really hard and for people that have been taken advantage of.”
Alekman encountered the personal injury discipline in a more random way. His mother was a lawyer in Boston, and after his undergraduate studies, he took a job at a personal injury firm, where he developed a knack for the customer service side of the business — communicating with clients in a way that his co-workers did not. He developed a taste for it and attended law school, eventually working in personal injury and criminal defense, but eventually focusing solely on the former.
“Every day, we wake up, and we get to help people. And I’m passionate about helping people,” Alekman said. “I know that sounds cliché, but we literally wake up in the morning, and someone’s going to come to us with a problem, and we we get to solve that problem, and it just feels really good.”
Both were quick to credit their team for the firm’s legal successes.
“Every time that we get a large settlement, every time we do something that’s really good for a client, I make sure I go around to the staff and say, ‘hey, you were part of this. This isn’t just our victory,’” DiTusa said. “If we’re not all rowing in the same direction, we don’t get the results that we’re able to get.”
And that goes for both their work with clients and the firm’s community service, with priorities ranging from food insecurity to anything having to do with children — and sometimes both.
“We’re just one part of a bigger system that gives back to people. And, trust me, there is great need in Springfield, but there are also a lot of great people in Springfield that help fill the need.”
“Nobody should go to sleep hungry. We live in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, and people go to sleep hungry. It’s insanity. That shouldn’t be a thing, right?” Alekman said. “We hear from people at Square One about how they provide food to kids to bring home on the weekends because otherwise they’re not sure those kids are going to eat. How can you not want to support an organization that’s doing that?”
Case in Point
Many walls at Alekman DiTusa feature nature photographs that Alekman has taken on trips around the world.
“I share my photos on Facebook, and a friend of mine said, ‘hey, you should do a calendar,’” he recalled. So he did — but he wanted to use the proceeds to give back, so for the past four years, he has sold those calendars of his international photos to support Mara United School in Masai Mara, Kenya.
The first year, he donated $1,500 from those sales to get the school tied into a nearby village’s well, the first time the kids were able to access fresh water. Other years have funded electricity at the school, a small tractor to help with agriculture, and, most recently, 48 triple bunk beds, mattresses, and other items for a new girls’ dorm.
“I’d love to be able to fund every project,” Alekman said. “One of the things that we don’t get to do very often is to see how our support makes a difference, and going to that school — I’ll actually be back in October, and I’ll get to visit the kids again — it’s amazing how much they do with so little and the difference a small amount makes to change lives over there. So Rob and I are fortunate because we get to do what we do — we get to help people.”
And so does their staff, he added. “They put us in a position of success every day. They come to work with the same attitude — to help somebody. And we’re helping people on their worst days. I mean, nobody’s like, ‘yay, I get to call a lawyer.’ No — someone got injured, or something horrible happened to a family member.”
With their success, he added, comes a responsibility to give back, which is why the firm’s success in its legal cases is so tightly interwoven with its work in the community.
“We’ve worked hard and been fortunate enough to be in a position to be able to give back, so we do,” DiTusa said. “We’re just one part of a bigger system that gives back to people. And, trust me, there is great need in Springfield, but there are also a lot of great people in Springfield that help fill the need.
“I always think, if you’re in a position to be able to give and you do it, you make yourself a better person,” he added. “I think it’s called selfish giving. Giving is good for everyone, and we have to do it as a community. But it’s also selfish in a way because, by doing it, you also feel good. The moment you make that gift, you feel better about life, about everything. And the more you do it, the better you feel.”
McGrath, who has been on the receiving end of the firm’s generosity in more than one setting, doesn’t see it as selfish at all.
“Their honesty, integrity, and dedication shows in their commitment to service,” she said. “They truly embody every aspect of what it means to be a Difference Maker.”
SPRINGFIELD — Tickets are now on sale for the 18th annual Difference Makers awards gala, hosted by BusinessWest. The event will take place on Tuesday, April 7 from 5:30 to 9 p.m. at the Log Cabin in Holyoke. Tickets cost $95 per person, and tables of 10-12 are available. They can be purchased by clicking here.
The Difference Makers class of 2026 will be introduced in the Feb. 16 issue of BusinessWest. This year’s honorees are:
• Ryan Alekman and Robert DiTusa, partners, Alekman DiTusa, LLC;
• Rachelle Hannoush, director of Youth, Violence Prevention, and Court Support Programs, YWCA of Western Massachusetts;
• Jess Miller, comedian and founder, The Kind Squad;
• Edward Sokolowski, managing partner and wealth advisor, Pioneer Valley Financial Group;
• Margaret Tantillo, executive director, O’Dell Women’s Center; and
• Zeno Temple, founder, Just Us Movement.
BusinessWest launched the Difference Makers program in 2009 to recognize and celebrate the work of individuals, groups, businesses, and institutions that are positively impacting the communities of Western Massachusetts. The 18th annual Difference Makers program is sponsored by Burkart Pizzanelli, P.C., TommyCar Auto Group, and Westfield Bank.
For more information, call Natasha Mercado-Santana, Marketing and Events Manager, at (413) 781-8600, ext. 100, or email [email protected].
SPRINGFIELD — BusinessWest is now accepting nominations for its 18th annual Difference Makers awards, but time is almost up, as the deadline is Monday, Dec. 22 at 5 p.m. Nominations can be submitted by clicking here.
BusinessWest launched the Difference Makers program in 2009 to recognize and celebrate the work of individuals, groups, businesses, and institutions that are positively impacting the communities of Western Mass. As previous honorees have shown, there are many ways to make a difference within our community, such as working on initiatives aimed at improving quality of life; succeeding in business, public service, or education; inspiring others to get involved; and making an imaginative effort to help solve societal issues.
For more information, call Natasha Mercado-Santana, Marketing and Events Manager, at (413) 781-8600, ext. 100, or email [email protected].
SPRINGFIELD — BusinessWest is now accepting nominations for its 18th annual Difference Makers awards.
BusinessWest launched the Difference Makers program in 2009 to recognize and celebrate the work of individuals, groups, businesses, and institutions that are positively impacting the communities of Western Mass. As previous honorees have shown, there are many ways to make a difference within our community, such as working on initiatives aimed at improving quality of life; succeeding in business, public service, or education; inspiring others to get involved; and making an imaginative effort to help solve societal issues.
Nominations for the Difference Makers class of 2025 are due by Monday, Dec. 22. They can be submitted by clicking here.
For more information, call Natasha Mercado-Santana, Marketing and Events Manager, at (413) 781-8600, ext. 100, or email [email protected].
SPRINGFIELD — BusinessWest is now accepting nominations for its 18th annual Difference Makers awards.
BusinessWest launched the Difference Makers program in 2009 to recognize and celebrate the work of individuals, groups, businesses, and institutions that are positively impacting the communities of Western Mass. As previous honorees have shown, there are many ways to make a difference within our community, such as working on initiatives aimed at improving quality of life; succeeding in business, public service, or education; inspiring others to get involved; and making an imaginative effort to help solve societal issues.
Nominations for the Difference Makers class of 2025 are due by Monday, Dec. 22. They can be submitted by clicking here.
For more information, call Natasha Mercado-Santana, Marketing and Events Manager, at (413) 781-8600, ext. 100, or email [email protected].
SPRINGFIELD — BusinessWest is now accepting nominations for its 18th annual Difference Makers awards.
BusinessWest launched the Difference Makers program in 2009 to recognize and celebrate the work of individuals, groups, businesses, and institutions that are positively impacting the communities of Western Mass. As previous honorees have shown, there are many ways to make a difference within our community, such as working on initiatives aimed at improving quality of life; succeeding in business, public service, or education; inspiring others to get involved; and making an imaginative effort to help solve societal issues.
Nominations for the Difference Makers class of 2025 are due by Monday, Dec. 22. They can be submitted by clicking here.
For more information, call Natasha Mercado-Santana, Marketing and Events Manager, at (413) 781-8600, ext. 100, or email [email protected].
SPRINGFIELD — BusinessWest is now accepting nominations for its 18th annual Difference Makers awards.
BusinessWest launched the Difference Makers program in 2009 to recognize and celebrate the work of individuals, groups, businesses, and institutions that are positively impacting the communities of Western Mass. As previous honorees have shown, there are many ways to make a difference within our community, such as working on initiatives aimed at improving quality of life; succeeding in business, public service, or education; inspiring others to get involved; and making an imaginative effort to help solve societal issues.
Nominations for the Difference Makers class of 2025 are due by Monday, Dec. 22. They can be submitted by clicking here.
For more information, call Natasha Mercado-Santana, Marketing and Events Manager, at (413) 781-8600, ext. 100, or email [email protected].
SPRINGFIELD — Some tickets still remain for the 17th annual Difference Makers awards gala, hosted by BusinessWest. The event will take place on Wednesday, April 9 at 5:30 p.m. at the Log Cabin in Holyoke. Tickets cost $95 per person, and tables of 10 are available. They can be purchased at businesswest.com/eventcalendar/difference-makers-tickets.
The class of 2025, profiled in the Feb. 17 issue of BusinessWest and at businesswest.com, are Jennie Adamczyk, executive director of Providence Ministries; Sheryl Blancato, CEO of Second Chance Animal Services; Andrea Bordenca, CEO of DESCO Service; Mychal Connolly, CEO of Stand Out Truck; John Delaney, director of Ride to Remember; John Doleva, president and CEO of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame; the Michael J. Dias Foundation; and Dan Moriarty, president and CEO of Monson Savings Bank.
The 17th annual Difference Makers program is sponsored by Burkhart Pizzanelli, the Royal Law Firm, TommyCar Auto Group, and Westfield Bank.
For more information, call Natasha Mercado-Santana, Marketing and Events manager, at (413) 781-8600, ext. 100, or email [email protected].
SPRINGFIELD — Tickets are on sale for the 17th annual Difference Makers awards gala, hosted by BusinessWest. The event will take place on Wednesday, April 9 at 5:30 p.m. at the Log Cabin in Holyoke. Tickets cost $95 per person, and tables of 10 are available. Click here to purchase tickets.
The class of 2025, profiled in the Feb. 17 of BusinessWest and at businesswest.com, includes Jennie Adamczyk, executive director of Providence Ministries; Sheryl Blancato, CEO of Second Chance Animal Services; Andrea Bordenca, CEO of DESCO Service; Mychal Connolly, CEO of Stand Out Truck; John Delaney, director of Ride to Remember; John Doleva, president and CEO of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame; the Michael J. Dias Foundation; and Dan Moriarty, president and CEO of Monson Savings Bank.
The 17th annual Difference Makers program is sponsored by Burkhart Pizzanelli, the Royal Law Firm, TommyCar Auto Group, and Westfield Bank.
The Difference Makers program was launched in 2009 to recognize and celebrate the work of individuals, groups, businesses, and institutions that are positively impacting the Pioneer Valley. As our winners have shown, there are many ways to make a difference within our community: through work on initiatives to improve quality of life; through success in business, public service, or education; through contributions that inspire others to get involved; through imaginative efforts to help solve one or more societal issues; or through a combination of the above.
For more information, call Natasha Mercado-Santana, Marketing and Events manager, at (413) 781-8600, ext. 100, or email [email protected].
SPRINGFIELD — Tickets are on sale for the 17th annual Difference Makers awards gala, hosted by BusinessWest. The event will take place on Wednesday, April 9 at 5:30 p.m. at the Log Cabin in Holyoke. Tickets cost $95 per person, and tables of 10 are available. Click here to purchase tickets.
The class of 2025, profiled in the Feb. 17 of BusinessWest and at businesswest.com, includes Jennie Adamczyk, executive director of Providence Ministries; Sheryl Blancato, CEO of Second Chance Animal Services; Andrea Bordenca, CEO of DESCO Service; Mychal Connolly, CEO of Stand Out Truck; John Delaney, director of Ride to Remember; John Doleva, president and CEO of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame; the Michael J. Dias Foundation; and Dan Moriarty, president and CEO of Monson Savings Bank.
The 17th annual Difference Makers program is sponsored by Burkhart Pizzanelli, the Royal Law Firm, TommyCar Auto Group, and Westfield Bank.
The Difference Makers program was launched in 2009 to recognize and celebrate the work of individuals, groups, businesses, and institutions that are positively impacting the Pioneer Valley. As our winners have shown, there are many ways to make a difference within our community: through work on initiatives to improve quality of life; through success in business, public service, or education; through contributions that inspire others to get involved; through imaginative efforts to help solve one or more societal issues; or through a combination of the above.
For more information, call Natasha Mercado-Santana, Marketing and Events manager, at (413) 781-8600, ext. 100, or email [email protected].
SPRINGFIELD — Tickets are on sale for the 17th annual Difference Makers awards gala, hosted by BusinessWest. The event will take place on Wednesday, April 9 at 5:30 p.m. at the Log Cabin in Holyoke. Tickets cost $95 per person, and tables of 10 are available. Click here to purchase tickets.
The class of 2025, profiled in the Feb. 17 of BusinessWest and at businesswest.com, includes Jennie Adamczyk, executive director of Providence Ministries; Sheryl Blancato, CEO of Second Chance Animal Services; Andrea Bordenca, CEO of DESCO Service; Mychal Connolly, CEO of Stand Out Truck; John Delaney, director of Ride to Remember; John Doleva, president and CEO of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame; the Michael J. Dias Foundation; and Dan Moriarty, president and CEO of Monson Savings Bank.
The 17th annual Difference Makers program is sponsored by Burkhart Pizzanelli, the Royal Law Firm, TommyCar Auto Group, and Westfield Bank.
The Difference Makers program was launched in 2009 to recognize and celebrate the work of individuals, groups, businesses, and institutions that are positively impacting the Pioneer Valley. As our winners have shown, there are many ways to make a difference within our community: through work on initiatives to improve quality of life; through success in business, public service, or education; through contributions that inspire others to get involved; through imaginative efforts to help solve one or more societal issues; or through a combination of the above.
For more information, call Natasha Mercado-Santana, Marketing and Events manager, at (413) 781-8600, ext. 100, or email [email protected].
Difference Makers was launched in 2009 to recognize and celebrate the work of individuals, groups, businesses, and institutions that are positively impacting the communities of Western Mass. As our winners have shown, there are many ways to make a difference within our community.
Join Us Wednesday, April 9th at The Log Cabin in Holyoke
THANK YOU TO OUR PARTNER SPONSORS!
Jennie Adamczyk
Executive Director, Providence Ministries
Jennie oversees programs that include a soup kitchen, a pantry, sober homes for men, and a warming shelter. She does all this and more with determination, imagination, and a focus on identifying and meeting critical needs.
Sheryl has built a wide-ranging nonprofit that includes four veterinary hospitals and a range of support services that help more than 56,000 animals each year and, just as important, keep families and their pets together.
Andrea is the leader of a successful healthcare emergency field-service response organization but also the leader of numerous initiatives that bring people together, create dialogue, build community, and help people become the best versions of themselves.
Mychal is a serial entrepreneur and successful owner of a unique marketing business, but also a mentor, role model, and true inspiration to aspiring entrepreneurs, particularly young people, helping them get off the ground or to the next level.
John helped create what has become one of the region’s premier bicycling events — not a competitive ride, but a communal one that has raised awareness of fallen heroes and money for a host of important charitable causes across the region.
President and CEO, Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame
John has led the Hall over the past two decades through myriad challenges, while also becoming greatly involved in the Western Mass. community, especially with programs involving young people and sports.
The Michael J. Dias Foundation has grown out of tragedy — the deaths of several young men due to drug addiction — into a series of sober homes where individuals in recovery can develop resilience, responsibility, accountability, and a chance to move on to a successful life of independence.
Dan likes to use sports metaphors involving the importance of teamwork. But he practices what he preaches and leads by example, and has built a strong team committed to getting involved and giving back to the community.
Dan Moriarty will be the first to acknowledge that he goes heavy on the sports terms and comparisons between the athletic field and the workplace, especially when it comes to the power of teamwork.
Make that really heavy.
But it’s understandable, and for many reasons.
Moriarty was a star athlete at Monson High School and later at Providence College, excelling at soccer. And he remains an athlete; he’s competed in several marathons and half-Ironmans (including the one in this region), as well as a full Ironman, which involves a 2.4-mile open-water swim, a 112-mile bike ride, and a 26.2-mile run (a full marathon). A few years back, he bicycled some 60 miles between Monson Savings Bank’s seven locations, a trek he called the ‘Tour de Branches.’
In the small-world department, he and Mike Rouette, executive vice president and chief operating officer at MSB, were teammates on the Monson High soccer team. In fact, they both scored goals in a 2-1 win over Monument Mountain in a 1984 game that propelled the team to the regional finals.
So, Moriarty certainly comes from a sports background.
And with that experience, he knows the full value of teamwork and understands that it’s more than a catchphrase managers will use to get employees to pull in the same direction.
Indeed, Moriarty stresses that, whether on the athletic field or in the workplace, individuals can excel and score goals (either figuratively or literally), but teams win games and accomplish great things together.
“Mike and I will sometimes maybe overuse the analogies from sports, but the best teams are the ones that have the best teamwork, and not necessarily the best players,” he said, adding that this the mindset he works to instill from the top, while also acknowledging that he has some pretty good players.
In keeping with this mindset, when called to inform him that he had been named a Difference Maker for 2025, he said simply, “I’m honored, but I’d rather give it to the team here.”
It is this ability to promote teamwork, while fostering a philosophy of giving back and getting involved, that makes Moriarty worthy of this award.
“Dan exemplifies a culture of support and community giving,” said Dodie Carpentier, first vice president and Human Resources officer at MSB, who nominated Moriarty for the Difference Makers award. “Leading a community-focused bank, he has overseen contributions of approximately $230,000 to local nonprofits this year, with bank staff collectively volunteering around 1,700 hours of their time. Over the past five years, MSB has supported 420 organizations, donating more than $1 million, and collectively volunteering more than 10,500 hours of time.
“Dan himself sets a powerful example, dedicating approximately 200 hours annually to nonprofit work, embodying the bank’s commitment to community involvement,” she went on. “As a member of the bank’s community outreach and community reinvestment committees, he actively fosters initiatives that align with the needs of the local community, encouraging his team to engage deeply and give back. His leadership reflects a genuine dedication to building stronger, more supportive communities.”
Claire Clini, owner of Professional Paralegal Services and a long-time MSB board member, and, before that, a corporator, agreed.
“Mike and I will sometimes maybe overuse the analogies from sports, but the best teams are the ones that have the best teamwork, and not necessarily the best players.”
“He’s a caring, compassionate individual, and he’s perhaps not the stodgy model of a bank president of years ago,” she explained. “He’s very transparent with the board and other employees relative to discussing his ideas, and certainly with the board, he encourages conversation relative to the strategy and the broad mission of serving the local community and the customers. I find that open communication to be refreshing, interesting, and very positive given what’s going on in the world today.
Like his former Monson High soccer teammate (and now colleague at Monson Savings Bank) Mike Rouette, left, Dan Moriarty says he understands, and preaches, the importance of teamwork. Photo by Bob Zemba, Simple Truth Imaging
“He’s always willing to give his time and his talent with a lot of local organizations, including several nonprofits,” she went on. “And I think that’s a quality to be admired by others.”
These comments explain why Moriarty will invariably use ‘we’ instead of ‘I’ when talking about anything at the bank, why he’s looked upon as a mentor and role model, and why he’s a true Difference Maker.
Goal Oriented
You might say that sports — and community involvement — run in the family.
Indeed, the soccer field at Monson High, home to the Mustangs, is named in honor of Moriarty’s grandfather, Robert.
“He was a great educator and coach in Monson; he started sports in Monson, so he was well-respected in a small community,” he said. “He was a coach from the ’20s to the ’60s, and he was an inspiration because he gave everyone an opportunity to succeed, and with the students and athletes who needed help, he would spend more time with them; he was their first real mentor.”
Moriarty said he has tried to follow his grandfather’s — and parents’ — lead throughout his professional career, which started at the accounting firm Coopers & Lybrand, now PWC, where he stayed a few years before coming to a realization.
“You have to let your team know that, even though there are people in positions that may have more responsibility, it’s still a team effort — no one’s better than anyone else here at the bank.”
“I felt like public accounting just wasn’t my style because you’d just go into a company for two or three weeks and do audit and consulting work with them, and then you would move on,” he explained. “You never really had a chance to help contribute to the business.”
His career took him to a few private companies, including Aetna and what was Rehab West, now HealthSouth, and then Unicare.
“But I kept feeling the same thing — that I wasn’t contributing to the overall success of an organization,” he went on, adding that, when he saw that Monson Savings Bank was looking for an account manager, he saw an opportunity to change that equation.
Unfortunately, he didn’t get the job. Fortunately, the woman who did — who, coincidentally, worked with him at Unicare — became frustrated as the bank went through a conversion and decided to leave, letting Moriarty know the job was open again.
“I told her, ‘it doesn’t sound like a great role if you’re leaving.’ But it was my hometown, so I decided to take a chance,” he recalled.
Over the years, he moved up in the ranks, with titles ranging from controller to senior vice president and chief financial officer, and eventually, president in 2020, followed by president and CEO in 2021.
As he discussed how he manages, Moriarty described himself as a servant leader.
At Monson Savings Bank, Dan Moriarty has fostered a culture of teamwork and giving back.
“I’ll do anything from the menial task of cleaning the vestibule, blowing out leaves, to leading the executives on complex situations, loan opportunities, and market-expansion opportunities,” he said, adding that, in all cases, he tries to lead by example and set a tone.
Elaborating, he said he sets this tone by being transparent and empathetic while also helping employees with the challenging assignment of balancing work and life.
“I try to set reasonable goals and expectations, but also let them know that I support them in any way I can, without getting in their way of accomplishing what they want to do,” he said, crediting his wife with reminding him, early and often, that he needs to listen and be open to new ideas.
“And that’s an enjoyable part of my job,” he went on. “I work with tremendously intelligent people who have great ideas, which makes it a really good team environment here.”
He Knows the Score
Throughout his tenure, Moriarty has stressed community involvement, said those who know him, and he has set the tone personally.
Indeed, he has been involved with many nonprofits, causes, institutions, and industry groups. The long list includes his church, St. Patrick’s in Monson, and the Monson Free Library. It also includes several nonprofits, including Link to Libraries (LTL), I Found Light Against All Odds, and the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts, as well as Baystate Wing Hospital, the East of the River Five Town Chamber of Commerce, the Western Massachusetts Economic Development Council, and the Massachusetts Bankers Assoc. He was also recently asked to be on the board of the Healing Racism Institute of Pioneer Valley.
As he talked about them, he used ‘I’ and ‘we’ interchangeably, meaning there is often not a distinction between himself and the bank. That’s especially true with nonprofits such as LTL and I Found Light, where he plays a role himself, but the bank supports those causes as a company.
Moriarty said he says yes to requests to get involved whenever he can, and often, these yeses involve organizations focused on food insecurity, education and literacy, financial literacy, healthcare, and more.
And while giving back and fostering a culture where others do as well, he is always working to take the good players he has at the bank and create an ever-better, ever-stronger team.
When asked how he does that, he said there are many things that go into that assignment.
“You have to let your team know that, even though there are people in positions that may have more responsibility, it’s still a team effort — no one’s better than anyone else here at the bank,” he explained. “And you must stress that we all celebrate when we achieve things, but we all have to take responsibility for our actions and show appreciation, the best that we can, to the organization and the employees.
“You can’t have silos in your organization, where one department thinks it’s better than another department,” he went on. “You remove one department in the organization, and the organization is going to be weak.”
He put an exclamation point on his comments about teamwork and teammates by saying, “it’s a team effort. I couldn’t achieve any of this without the incredible team at Monson Savings Bank. Their unwavering dedication inspires me to strive for excellence. It’s their deep commitment to our communities and customers that keeps me focused and driven.”
When asked what he thinks about biking 56 miles, running 13 miles, and swimming just over a mile (a half-Ironman), Moriarty said his mind will wander in several directions.
“I think about a lot of things — family, friends, business — but then, when you get toward the end, it’s a soul-searching experience; you’re pretty close to God at that point.”
He also thinks about how to be a better manager and leader, and often comes back to his wife’s reminders about communicating and, especially, being a good listener.
He’s already good at that, but he’s committed to becoming better, which makes him a good teammate — yes, there’s that word again. And it’s just one of the things that makes him a Difference Maker.
Michael J. Dias was a smart kid — an athlete and pianist who excelled in high school and college. He didn’t fit the stereotype of a drug abuser.
So, when he took his life after struggling with steroid addiction, his mother, Grace, had to know why. So she got in touch with Michael’s friends, and what she heard shocked her.
“It turns out he was on massive amounts of steroids. He tried to bulk up, and there were a lot of characters at the gyms selling that stuff,” she told BusinessWest, adding that she also found out he was selling to support an ever-more-desperate habit.
“It was a rude awakening. The thought process in society is that the drug users are kids that grew up in the streets of Springfield that were homeless, that didn’t have good families, didn’t have the right upbringing. Well, we lived in a 3,200-square-foot home in Ludlow. My kids had everything. And they were great students, both of them. So that didn’t make sense.”
Around the same time, Grace’s nephew was struggling with addiction, and the family started a support group for people in similar situations, then raised funds to create awareness in schools. Later, with her sister away on a trip, her nephew wound up detoxing in her house, then wanted her to take him to a sober home in Worcester.
“I dropped him off in this house that was disgusting. People were smoking in there; the house was filthy. I left there crying, thinking, ‘I just left my nephew in a space that I wouldn’t leave my dog in. How is he going to get better in a place like that?’
“We thought, ‘that doesn’t happen in our little community. My children couldn’t possibly know about that world.’ But it’s everywhere.”
“So, on the way home, I had this bright idea — I don’t know, they come to me at times — that we should start a foundation. And we should open a sober house.”
So a small group — Dias and her sisters, plus a few friends — set about raising money and wound up buying and fixing up a two-story home in Springfield for around $40,000, all the funds they had. In 2014, Michael’s House opened as a haven for men in the early stages of addiction recovery. There, she explained, they enjoy the support of a community of peers, guided by staffers who understand the path to recovery, in an atmosphere of accountability. Residents are encouraged to find employment and pay a modest rent.
And that’s how the foundation’s story begins — but not remotely where it ends. We’ll tell the story in a linear fashion, with every step along the way demonstrating how the Michael J. Dias Foundation has been, and continues to be, worthy of the title Difference Maker.
Tragedy into Victory
Katie and Ed Wilczynski were among the earliest members of the Michael J. Dias Foundation board. Like Michael, their son, Sean, grew up in a close-knit family in Ludlow.
“We were churchgoing people. He was involved in Boy Scouts and travel sports. We were together all the time as a family. He was very active in school,” Katie said. But life can take some sad, unexpected turns, and Sean’s turned quickly into painkiller addiction.
“Somewhere along the way, he injured his back and mentioned it to a classmate, and the classmate said, ‘oh, I’ve got something that might take the edge off of that.’ We think that’s where it started,” Ed explained. “He was a very talented hockey player, and he had aspirations of going on and doing more with his hockey. He was a driven, committed, very smart kid.”
Katie said society has become much more open to talking about the pervasiveness of drug addiction — and the fact that it doesn’t discriminate.
“We thought, ‘that doesn’t happen in our little community. My children couldn’t possibly know about that world,’” she said. “But it’s everywhere. So our big issue, in trying to help Sean when we recognized he had a problem, was trying to understand the world of recovery and how it works and detoxing and trying to find sober homes and treatments and how to work insurance.”
Thus began a series of sober homes (some effective, many not) and relapses for Sean, who eventually succumbed to addiction and lost his life. But the experience gave the Wilczynskis valuable insight as the foundation developed Michael’s House, especially when it came to life outside it. In short, Sean had struggled outside those residences.
“We started recognizing gentlemen leaving our houses oftentimes fell into that same category,” Katie said. “One year just wasn’t enough to get a good, stable job to be able to financially sustain them or catch up on childcare payments, or reconnect with family and rebuild the connections that had been damaged by some of their drug use. So we recognized, whatever our second home would be, it needed to be a transitional home that would give our guys extra time if they felt they needed more stability in one area of their life.”
An anonymous donor’s generosity in late 2017 paved the way for Sean’s Place, the foundation’s transitional sober home, which opened in early 2019. This residence offers a social model for sobriety, creating a secure environment for residents to support each other in a less-structured environment than Michael’s House.
“Every guy that has ever relapsed and left our houses, I’ve never heard any of them say, ‘I didn’t like it there; I would never go back.’ Normally, they would call me and thank me for the chance they had to be here because, to them, it was a gift.”
“We also felt that some of the guys leaving Michael’s House graduated from the program, but the only place they had to go was back into the environment they came from, back into the neighborhoods, with the same old friends who may not be supportive of their new lifestyle, or are still using themselves,” Ed said. “This just provided an extra step for them to set up some goals and continue to work on their recovery, but in a safe environment.”
In 2020, the foundation acquired a third sober-living residence called Christian and Brian’s House, which operates much like Michael’s House, serving as a supportive and nurturing community for men in the early stages of their recovery. The purchase was made possible through a combination of foundation funds and a generous contribution from the Forest Park Project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to raising funds in memory of Christian Diaz and Brian Metzger, two compassionate, charismatic friends who lost their lives to addiction.
Mary Ellen Metzger, Brian’s mother and another Michael J. Dias Foundation board member, said her son’s recovery path was frustrating and, in the end, fruitless.
“Our journey took us all over Massachusetts, to a lot of sober homes and a lot of programs. And, much like Katie found, some places were just big houses where they took your rent. There was no program whatsoever. In our foundation, we follow a 12-step recovery program. It’s clean, it’s sanitary, it’s safe, it’s a structured environment, and it provides a support system that fosters recovery as people navigate that difficult time in their lives.”
The Forest Park Project has been a great comfort to Mary Ellen. “It said to me that his friends remember him as more than his problem. And all of us in this foundation realize that these young men and women who are cursed with this disease of addiction, they didn’t choose it, and they are much more than their disease.
“The message isn’t that you’re a throwaway, like some sober houses where they don’t care what you do,” she added. “The message is, we know you’ve got it in you to succeed, and we’re going to help you to do that. We try to take people where they are and bring them forward.”
A Home for Women
Michael’s House, Sean’s Place, and Christian and Brian’s House have a combined capacity of 44 men — but no women. That will soon change.
The Michael J. Dias Foundation launched a $500,000 capital campaign last year aimed at funding the creation of a 16-bed sober home for women. So far, $214,000 has been raised, with generous contributions from individuals, businesses, and community leaders helping to propel the campaign forward. Donations can be made online at www.mdiasfoundation.org/capital-campaign.
The campaign’s chair, Dr. Megan Miller, an assistant professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at UMass Chan Medical School – Baystate and an addiction-medicine specialist, is a big believer in the project.
“I am very well-versed in how addiction affects women,” she said. “Gender-specific care is so important, especially in the early stages of recovery. In terms of receiving gender-specific care for substance abuse, women are an underserved population in Western Massachusetts. There is a dire need for a women’s sober home here.”
Ed Wilczynski agrees. “We did a little research last year before we started the capital campaign. We found that, in Western Massachusetts, only 11% of the beds were female-focused. The rest of the state had 25% of the sober beds focused on females. From a statistical perspective, 32% of those seeking recovery assistance are women. There’s a big disparity with beds available — especially the safe beds that we aspire to. So we decided that was the time to at least start the journey.”
As for the foundation’s journey, Dias believes it has been guided by God in many ways, from the way the members came together to the way needed funding and gifts have emerged. She’s especially proud that the organization has never taken on debt, paying for each project with money on hand instead of financing the properties.
It’s a dedicated group, too. There are four paid employees, including Executive Director Karen Blanchard, and everyone else, including all the officers and board members, are volunteers. As Karen Wilczynski put it, “your heart has to be in this.”
It really is a family, Dias said, one that provides temporary families for men (and someday women) in need of such a structure.
“Every guy that has ever relapsed and left our houses, I’ve never heard any of them say, ‘I didn’t like it there; I would never go back,’” she added. “Normally, they would call me and thank me for the chance they had to be here because, to them, it was a gift.”
And relapses do happen, Ed Wilczynski said. That’s the nature of addiction, which these parents know all too well.
“However, when it has happened to some of our residents, we are one of the first calls they make after they get out of detox, that they want to come back to us,” he added. “They know we had something, and they want to come back and get that reinforcement and work with our group again and then go back out on their own.”
Metzger said her son’s story didn’t end in a good place — but his legacy certainly has.
“In the 10 years of going through that merry-go-round with him, this was the only type of program that was set up for success,” she told BusinessWest. “I think every person involved in our houses feels valued, like they’re something special. You can have hopes and dreams, and we’re going to support them. And we’re going to hold you accountable — because that’s what real life does.”
John Doleva knows a little something about recognition programs.
Indeed, he’s president and CEO of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, which, in addition to being a sports museum, annually inducts a handful of individuals and groups, across all levels of the game, into the shrine.
In fact, he’s the one who gets to call these people and let them know they’ve reached the pinnacle of this sport.
So when he was called to inform him that he was named a Difference Maker for 2025, the shoe was on the other foot, and he was both humbled and a little … well, reluctant.
“Why me? I’m just doing my job,” he asked.
Maybe. But this job, which he’s held since 2001, has been far more challenging — and even more rewarding — than he could possibly have imagined when he took it.
The rewards have come from overcoming those challenges, most of them financial in nature, and taking the Hall from a position where it didn’t know every two weeks if it could make payroll or if it would have to file for bankruptcy, or if it might be moved to another city, to where it is now: financially stable and with a secure future. In Springfield.
And most would say he isn’t just doing his job — he’s also been active in his community, especially regarding youth sports, childhood literacy, and other initiatives.
Jerry Colangelo, the former owner of the Phoenix Suns, long-time Hall of Fame board of governors member, and its current chair, has seen the transformative change at the shrine and credits Doleva with being the right leader at the right time.
“He’s always talked about how important the Hall of Fame is to the city of Springfield and the great interest he’s had, and the Hall has had, in promoting the city,” Colangelo told BusinessWest. “When you look at the progress the Hall of Fame has made, I give a great deal of credit to John Doleva. He’s been a great leader, and I think he’s a very valuable asset for the city of Springfield. The Hall of Fame is in the best financial condition it’s ever been in, by far, and the future looks great.”
Frank Colaccino, another long-time board member, agreed. “John doesn’t waver — he’s a hard-working guy; he doesn’t give up,” he said. “He’s one of the key reasons this organization is where it is today. John is the engine that makes it go.”
Looking back, Doleva told BusinessWest that it was never his intention to stay at the Hall long enough to have people describe him in such terms. Indeed, he said his plan was to stay a few years and then return to the sporting-goods world from which he came.
What kept him from going back, what kept him at the Hall, was the enormity of the challenge and opportunity to lead the shrine through it.
“When you look at the progress the Hall of Fame has made, I give a great deal of credit to John Doleva. He’s been a great leader, and I think he’s a very valuable asset for the city of Springfield.”
“I wouldn’t call it a thrill, but it was the thrill of managing something that that was seemingly impossible,” he said. “It was a like a firefight; you get into it, and you’re making progress — you can feel it, you can see it. It took a long time, and there were a couple of stumbles like the 2008 recession. But I enjoyed seeing the Hall reposition itself — that was exciting to me.”
Over the past 20 years or so, the Hall has gone from $14 million in debt to a $4 million endowment. Doleva acknowledges both that the latter is certainly not enough, and one of his goals is to greatly grow that number, and that the turnaround at the Hall was not the work of one man.
John Doleva says the successful capital campaign accompanying a recent renovation of the Hall exemplifies its stronger financial footing and status within the basketball community. Photo by Bob Zemba, Simple Truth Imaging
But those who know him say it’s Doleva’s leadership and ability to build vital relationships that were weak or non-existent that made it possible.
And that’s one of many reasons why he’s a true Difference Maker.
Not a Slam Dunk
As noted earlier, Dovela came from the sporting-goods world, specifically Spalding, then based in Chicopee at the site of what is now a Callaway golf-ball manufacturing plant.
He was 25 when he joined the company as assistant product manager in the early ’80s, eventually rising to vice president and general manager of the company’s Sporting Goods Group. He said his years working for President George Dickerman, noted for being a tough, demanding manager, were difficult, but ultimately invaluable learning experiences.
“Those first few years, I went through the wringer with him … there were lots of times when I said, ‘this is crazy, I’m going to quit, I’m going to quit, I’m going to quit,’” he recalled. “But the lightbulb went off one day that what he was doing was preparing those who wanted to be prepared to be really good managers.
“You were always ready with your numbers, for instance, and you had two or three options for every question you anticipated him asking,” he went on. “And I think that really helped me with my business thinking.”
Doleva said those years at Spalding under Dickerman certainly helped steel him for what was to come at the Hall, which he joined in 1999 as vice president of Marketing, with the encouragement of Dickerman, one of the many leaders forced out when Spalding was acquired by KKR in 1996. (Doleva took a package from Spalding and worked briefly for a technology company in the Berkshires before coming to the Hall.)
Just a few years later, when then-president Don Gibson left, Doleva was placed in the role of chief operating officer, and a year later, he was named president and CEO and thrust into what could only be called a crisis.
“Those first few years, I went through the wringer with him … there were lots of times when I said, ‘this is crazy, I’m going to quit, I’m going to quit, I’m going to quit. But the lightbulb went off one day that what he was doing was preparing those who wanted to be prepared to be really good managers.”
Indeed, the new Hall of Fame on the city’s riverfront was opening after a failed capital campaign and amid $14 million in debt that suffocated the institution.
Colangelo remembers Doleva calling him at the height of this crisis in 2002, asking for advice, and soliciting his help. Colangelo responded by pledging financial support and telling other NBA owners — “I didn’t ask them, I told them” — to support the cause as well.
The money raised by the NBA provided vital breathing room, but the crisis was far from over, and huge amounts of debt remained. The firefight, as Doleva described it earlier, would continue for years.
Describing how he and his team were able to steer the Hall out of serious debt, onto stable financial footing, and raise more than $30 million during a recent capital campaign to renovate the shrine, he said it’s been about building relationships — with the NBA, the NCAA, high-school basketball, other bodies, and especially the hall of famers themselves.
“When I first came to the Hall, we’d have enshrinement, and we’d invite existing hall of famers back, but we wouldn’t pay for their flights, we wouldn’t pay for their hotel, we wouldn’t pay for their ticket to enshrinement,” he explained. “And the return was very low; I remember one year we had five hall of famers return and a class of three. It wasn’t a very crowded room.
John Doleva, left, with former UMass coach John Calipari at his induction ceremony, has led the Hall through times of both growth and extreme challenge.
“The first thing I said when I took over — and this is when we had all that debt and no money — is that ‘we have got to offer to pay for hall of famers to come back, with a guest; we’re going to pay for their airfare, we’re going to pay for their hotel and their ground transportation … we’re going to treat them like hall of famers. And we’re going to bet that this will pay off in the future because they will get more involved.’”
And they have, with 58 hall of famers coming to Springfield for enshrinement ceremonies last fall, joining the 13 being inducted. Meanwhile, these inductees have become foot soldiers, as Doleva called them, acting as ambassadors for the Hall and taking part in its many events around the country.
Nothing but Net
This brings Doleva back to something he said earlier about seeing the Hall reposition itself over the years “from a place that had a lack of knowledge and lack of respect from the basketball community to something that was meaningful and respected and, in fact, revered.
“We’ve changed the minds of a lot of people in basketball about what the Hall is, what it represents, and what kind of quality image it has in the game,” he went on, adding that this work never stops.
While repositioning the Hall, Doleva has also become quite involved in the Western Mass. community. He’s active with the Greater Springfield Convention and Visitors Bureau, and also with efforts to create the annual Hoophall Classic, one of the nation’s largest and most prestigious high-school basketball tournaments, and Hooplandia, the annual 3-on-3 basketball tourney staged at the Big E, with select division championship games at the Hall.
Meanwhile, he has also been involved with the nonprofit Link to Libraries (LTL) — as a reader, program sponsor, and youth mentor — as well as the Greater Springfield YMCA, Springfield College, the Red Cross of Pioneer Valley, the Springfield Rescue Mission homeless shelter, and other area agencies.
“John is a dynamic, hardworking, caring, and humble man. He excels in many things, including his work at the Hall of Fame, but more importantly, he excels at being a truly wonderful and generous human being,” wrote Susan Jaye Kaplan, co-founder of LTL, as she nominated Doleva for the Difference Makers award. “He goes the extra mile each day, and not just in his work-related duties. He cares greatly for his Western Mass. community, and it is evident on a daily basis.”
Getting back to his role as the one who calls inductees with the good news, Doleva said that’s a bittersweet day — because he’s also the one who calls those who came up short in the annual voting.
And there are sometimes tears from those in both camps, he said, adding that this makes the day somewhat difficult.
As for the phone call he received from BusinessWest … there were repeated attempts to minimize his contributions to the Hall, the game, the city of Springfield, and this region by simply saying, “I’m just doing my job.”
But Doleva has been doing much more than that. He’s been a real leader and a true Difference Maker.
John Delaney remembers, in vivid detail, the day his colleague, Springfield Police Officer Kevin Ambrose, died.
It was June 4, 2012, and Delaney was having lunch with his wife when his phone started blowing up. Ambrose had been shot in the line of duty, responding to a domestic disturbance.
“I raced to Baystate Medical Center and went into the ER, and when they saw me coming in, they directed me right to the room where a team of doctors and nurses were working on him,” Delaney recalled. “When I got in the room, Kevin was lying there. And within 30 seconds to a minute, the doctor pronounced him dead. It was kind of tough to take.”
He also recalled listening to dispatch from the hospital parking lot, to all the 911 calls still pouring in. “The world didn’t stop, and the police officers couldn’t stop just because they just lost one of their own.”
Delaney was tasked with planning Ambrose’s funeral — attended by some 5,000 police officers — and a celebration of life afterward, but he and some colleagues wanted to do something more to commemorate their friend. The death later that summer of Westfield Police Officer Jose Torres, who was struck by a truck in the line of duty, got them thinking about a broader event to honor fallen officers. “My friends and I were bike riders, so we said, ‘why not do a bike ride in their honor?’”
They planned a route from Springfield to Boston and figured maybe 50 people would participate, but about 170 signed up, and the Boston Police Department helped out by closing off the route to cars from Boylston Street to the State House.
“I’m riding along guys that I’d worked with for years, state troopers, police officers from around Western Massachusetts, and they’re all crying, strong guys that really show no emotion while they’re working, but they showed emotion that day,” Delaney recalled.
The initial organizers — Delaney, Officers Mike Goggin and Eddie Vanzant, and Gary Kennedy, who owned Competitive Edge Ski & Bike — knew this should be a regular event, but what they didn’t know was that, 14 years later, Ride to Remember would grow into one of the biggest cycling events in Massachusetts, drawing more than 500 riders per year and raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for worthy causes while honoring the memories of local fallen heroes from the ranks of police officers, firefighters, and corrections officers, as well as the families that must carry on after they’re gone.
“Every year, we ride for somebody to make sure that their family becomes part of the Ride to Remember family. And we let them know that we’re never going to forget. So every year we do the ride, we remember their names; we have signs with their pictures emblazoned on them along the route,” Delaney said. “We’re making sure that the average citizens that we protect and serve every day know that these cops gave their lives to protect them.”
Service in His Blood
Delaney understands the risk, sacrifice, and sometimes deep loss that come with public-service careers.
“I guess public service was in my blood. My grandfather died fighting a fire in Springfield. He was an acting deputy chief, but a captain in one of the station houses. He was always one of the first ones in, and he died fighting a fire. I never met him. That was way before I was born.
“And then my dad died when I was 10. He was in the Navy, also serving the public and the safety of citizens. So I guess that ran through my blood.”
“I’m riding along guys that I’d worked with for years, state troopers, police officers from around Western Massachusetts, and they’re all crying, strong guys that really show no emotion while they’re working, but they showed emotion that day.”
Delaney retired as a Springfield Police sergeant seven years ago — again, acutely aware that many officers don’t make it to retirement — and continues to teach at American International College. “I’m teaching young kids what it’s like to be a cop, hoping to mold them to become good police officers. And I continue on with this ride to make sure people don’t forget. That’s the only reason why I do it.”
He credits his wife, Gabriela, for being his “right hand,” not only helping with copious planning on logistics, supplies, and more, but grounding him when he becomes stressed.
“Every year I do this, I say to her a month before the ride, ‘this is the last year; I can’t do it anymore,’ because it’s stressful to feed everybody, hydrate everybody, transport people, make sure people are safe. We can’t publicize the route because I fear something might happen to the riders because there are a lot of crazy people out there. A lot goes into this ride, and I don’t sleep the night before the ride, but I pedal every mile, every year.”
Seven years into retirement from the Springfield Police Department, John Delaney has remained deeply involved in Ride to Remember. Photo by Bob Zemba, Simple Truth Imaging
Ride to Remember is no longer a one-way trek to Boston, instead embarking on a different round-trip journey every year, always starting and ending in downtown Springfield. This year, it will head to Hartford and back, not for the first time; other years have employed routes that head to Worcester or wind around Western Mass.
“As we’re planning the route, we have to go to every jurisdiction that we hit along the way to get permits, to let them know we’re coming,” Delaney said. “It grew from 170 to 500. That’s a lot of people on a bicycle. If you see it in person, it just goes on forever. We have police officers on motorcycles, escorting the whole way, and we never have to stop. All the local jurisdictions help out. They’re all on board, and they meet us at each border.”
But the riders do stop for at least four rest and refreshment breaks, and everyone stays together; it’s not a competitive event, but a communal one.
“You don’t have to be a cop, fireman, or corrections officer to do the ride. Everybody can do the ride. Our oldest person that does the ride every year is 85 years old, and they start at 16, 17 years old,” he explained. Three Peter Pan buses follow along, and if anyone can’t keep up or finish a leg, they can put their bike on a truck and get on the bus, where volunteers offer hydration and massages; an ambulance also trails the pack for more serious concerns. Those on the buses can rejoin the ride at any stop.
“It’s more than just a ride. It’s a powerful tribute to the dedication and sacrifice of our local law-enforcement officers and first responders who put their lives on the line every day.”
“These are weekend warriors; they’re not like Tour de France professional bikers. We only go 13 miles an hour, which is a conversational pace. I highly encourage people to take part in this. People come up to me after every ride and say, ‘this is one of the best days of my life.’”
That’s because they’re pedaling for a reason, he added. “There’s camaraderie. You’re riding alongside people you don’t know, most of whom are first responders, and they develop friendships as they’re pedaling along. And if you get a flat tire, Competitive Edge changes it in 30 seconds, like it’s a NASCAR pit stop.”
Mutual Aid
Ride to Remember, which takes place on Sept. 6 this year, charges just $200 to participate. A winter indoor event has been added in recent years, which takes place this year on March 2 at Scantic Valley YMCA in Wilbraham and costs $45. But corporate sponsorships, including PeoplesBank, Country Bank, AFC Urgent Care, and Domino’s Pizza, among other partners, are critical.
Riders gather in downtown Springfield, as they do at the start of every Ride to Remember.
Over the years, proceeds have supported many causes in the region, including Christina’s House, On-Site Academy, Square One, multiple police and firefighter memorials, several neighborhood playgrounds and soccer fields, and other community-based initiatives.
Shannon Mumblo, who founded Christina’s House and was honored by BusinessWest as a Woman of Impact in 2021, when she served as the nonprofit’s executive director, was one of three individuals who nominated Delaney as a Difference Maker this year.
“It’s more than just a ride,” she wrote. “It’s a powerful tribute to the dedication and sacrifice of our local law-enforcement officers and first responders who put their lives on the line every day.”
Those aren’t just words for Mumblo, who backs them up by organizing the ride’s 100-plus volunteers every year, Delaney said. “She gives them jobs, makes sure the rest stops are manned, helps collect the donated food … she’s a monster. She does everything, and with a smile on her face.”
With the support of people like that, as well as his dedicated wife and everyone else who contributes to the event’s success, it’s no wonder Delaney stressed, multiple times, that this Difference Makers honor isn’t his alone — not by a longshot.
And, again, the community impact is huge. Ride to Remember has supported Christina’s House — which takes in homeless mothers and their children and helps them return to independence — to the tune of about $250,000 over the years. Ambrose’s widow, Carla, chose that nonprofit as one of the ride’s supported causes because, Delaney said, Ambrose was a family man.
“I can remember when I was a younger cop, and we would come across women with kids sleeping in the bus station. We had no avenue … where do you take those people? It was definitely a void that needed to be filled in the community, and Christina’s House is filling it.”
As noted, other nonprofits have benefited from the ride as well. “We donate to a charity that helps police officers and counsels them through post-traumatic stress,” said Delaney. “If they witness a shooting or if they witness a baby dying, that weighs heavy on a cop’s shoulder. A lot of times, they have nowhere to turn, so we donate to that. I’m very proud of the charities that we donate to. All of them are based here in Western Massachusetts.”
He said the ride is deeply personal to each rider in their own way.
“A really good friend of mine, Sal Persico, was a police officer in Florida, and he came up here to live. I coached his daughters in soccer. He was my best friend; he was like my brother. He did every ride with me, but he died of a massive heart attack, taken way too early in life. I ride for him every year. His family is like my family.
“So every year, before the ride, I always give a little speech after a prayer, and I say, ‘the Ride to Remember means a lot to a lot of people. Everybody out here that’s riding, remember somebody that you’ve lost, that you’ve loved in life. It could be a father, uncle, grandmother, best friend, or the police officers. While you’re riding, remember that person. That’s what it’s about.”
Delaney still does plenty of riding on his own time. “My friends and I will go out and do 100 mikes a week. It’s just part of our nature.”
But even for those who can’t say the same, Ride to Remember is a very doable — and deeply meaningful — effort, one that truly makes a deep impact in the region. Just like the Difference Maker who helped start it because he wanted to keep some heroes’ memories alive.
Mychal Connolly believes in entrepreneurship, but he also believes in learning and mentorship and absorbing the examples of success stories before him.
That’s why he’s fond of talking about the influences in his own life, like Yankee Candle founder Mike Kittredge, Vermont Teddy Bear founder John Sortino, Jelly Belly founder David Klein, and many others.
“I say this all the time: if you ever had the chance to speak to Mike Kittredge, you would know really quickly that it wasn’t about the candles when he sold for $500 million,” Connolly said. “You’ll know Mike Kittredge could have sold used chewing gum, and it would have been a $500 million used chewing-gum company. I loved that guy, man. And John Sortino’s the same way.”
But while he’s learned lessons about ideas, marketing, selling, and growing a business from those famous names, he’s also drawn inspiration from his adoptive father, Harry Connolly, who owned a pest-control business in their native Bahamas.
“I remember one night, the hotel that he was spraying forgot he was coming,” he said, and they left guard dogs roaming free — and Harry was badly hurt. “It was like a horror scene — there was blood everywhere. And you know, this man, the next night, was out spraying the homes he had lined up for that day. That made a serious impact on me.”
Connolly has gathered all these lessons — on hard work, dedication, innovation, and more — and applied them during an entrepreneurial career that actually began at age 9, when he would take some of the candy his grandmother brought back from trips to Florida and sell it to classmates in school.
But his first real business, launched in 2008, was Stinky Cakes, which offered practical gifts to new parents, most notably cakes shaped from diapers. As a result of his early success in business and marketing, he was asked to do some teaching, guest lecturing, and mentoring of young entrepreneurs by groups like Valley Venture Mentors and EforAll Holyoke.
One course was called the “100 Grand Plan,” which, as that name suggests, explains how to make one’s first $100,000. Among the keys to doing so, and one that is often overlooked, is marketing.
These efforts led to the creation of the Launch and Stand Out Agency, which is where Connolly learned about non-traditional advertising — including mobile, digital billboards, which became the basis of his current business, Stand Out Truck, which will celebrate five years in business on March 9.
That’s right. He started a very public-facing business on March 9, 2000.
“I never got to run my year-one business plan,” he recalled. “My year-one business plan was to completely figure out the owner-operator model. But on March 13, the world shut down.”
Which meant 2020, dominated by COVID, was a time of navigating challenges, pivoting, and putting into action all the lessons he had learned about business and marketing from the Kittredges and Sortinos of the world. He made sure he started out with enough capital to withstand some very soft months, and he found some creative avenues for his traveling billboard, like graduation messages for students whose ceremonies had been canceled.
Since that start, the company has steadily built a base of hundreds of clients, from local businesses to large, national brands, and even, in one case, President Biden, when he was pitching what would become the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. And Connolly is planning to expand as well, possibly with a third truck and a larger team.
“Mike Kittredge could have sold used chewing gum, and it would have been a $500 million used chewing-gum company. I loved that guy, man.”
Meanwhile, he continues to mentor young people, most notably his son, Mychal Connolly Jr., — known to most as Mikey — who has been busy building his own first enterprise, Realistic CEO.
In short, Connolly Sr. has not only been an example of entrepreneurship, he’s helping others follow that path as well, benefiting not only their own careers and families, but the region’s economy. That’s the impact of an unconventional, charismatic, inspiring Difference Maker.
Realistic Plans
It’s also, as noted, the impact of a father on his oldest son’s entrepreneurial dreams.
The two of them co-authored a motivational book titled I Am a CEO. Realistic CEO after a high-school teacher told Mikey during a class project that his goal of becoming a CEO was, well, unrealistic. The book, illustrated by local artist DeAndra Roy, aims to inspire people to chase their dreams, no matter the odds.
Mychal Connolly’s son, Mychal Connolly Jr. (left), has been influencing young people through his Realistic CEO enterprise.
Mikey also launched the Realistic CEO Podcast, a platform where he interviews successful business owners, CEOs, founders, presidents, executives, and community leaders. Coincidentally, two of his early guests were members of the Difference Makers class of 2025 — John Doleva and Dan Moriarty.
As he studies communication and journalism at Holyoke Community College — he made the dean’s list last semester while running his podcast and public-speaking business — Mikey is honing his skills in those fields through real-world experience, while teaching others what he learns about becoming a CEO.
“It’s definitely exciting,” he said. “A teacher who started following me on Instagram said she bought the book and she read to her class. Then she posted that one of her students already wants to start a nail-salon business. I thought it was kind of cool that, simply by reading my story, the teacher was able to see the vision of her student wanting to start her own nail salon.”
Connolly loves seeing his son work for his dreams — which currently involves a goal of distributing 500,000 copies of the book over the next five years and taking his inspirational message to young people on a much wider stage than Western Mass. — and knowing he can provide an example of successful entrepreneurship from his own life.
“When I think back to Stinky Cakes and all the things I wish I knew then, I’m able to tell him,” he said. “But I say to him, ‘dude, I can open doors for you, but I’m never walking through the door for you.’”
One recent initiative is a one-for-one program where anytime someone purchases a copy, Mikey donates one to a kid in a low- to moderate-income community or book desert.
“When I meet someone, I don’t see someone who is maxed out. When I’m talking to my clients, I’m not talking to them where they are today. I live in the future. So I’m sitting at the top of the mountain enjoying a coffee or tea with them at them being their best, at their peak. And that’s what I do for myself every day.”
“So his business model is that, after he does the 500,000 copies and makes an impact in so many communities, he’s going to be booked to speak all around the world on how to create an impact as a youth,” Connolly said. “And he really wants to make an impact. He wants to be an example. He wants young people — and older people — around the country to look at him and go, ‘man, you know what, you’re right, I can do this right now. And it doesn’t matter if someone says it’s unrealistic — I have a plan, and I can do this, just like the kid in the book.’”
Family support is important to Connolly, who often talks about the influence of his wife, Adrienne, in his life.
“A lot of people see the wins, and they go, ‘oh, man, Myke’s doing great.’ But in business, sometimes it’s days, weeks, months where everything’s going wrong. And in those times, she’s the glue. From Stinky Cakes to the agency to Stand Out Truck, when it’s going wrong, she’s the glue. She’s the reason I’m able to do a lot of what I do.”
That said, the successes are real.
“I’m very good at marketing, and we get some massive clients. To be able to serve them with my business, it’s a great thing,” he told BusinessWest. “I’ve built a pretty strong team of designers, writers, videographers, all these pieces that you need to run a successful marketing campaign.”
He stressed that his Launch and Stand Out Agency performs the necessary work in the background so his clients can shine up front.
“My son is one of my clients at the agency, and a big reason for so much of what he’s doing out there is because of the Launch and Stand Out Agency. He’s the rock star, and we quietly do the work behind the scenes from a marketing and advertising standpoint.”
One thing his famous mentors — Kittredge, Sortino, and Klein — taught Connolly is that marketing is, at its heart, a simple thing. So he keeps it simple when delivering lessons through Marketing and Cupcakes, his long-time entrepreneurship networking and mentorship program.
“I love entrepreneurship, man. I believe in entrepreneurs. Like, I believe in people,” he said, before adding, “I believe in kind people. And, like I always tell people, in a world of 8 billion, you’d be hard-pressed to find 1 billion just straight evil people. I think the majority of people in the world are really good people. And I love serving people.”
King of His World
Connolly’s handle on social media is standouttruckking — a bold decision, which he humbly explained.
“Some people are like, ‘you call yourself a king?’ And I go, ‘listen, the king is the greatest servant amongst the community. The people choose their king. Just because you have nice clothes and nice jewelry, that don’t make you a king. The king is a servant — the biggest servant in the community. And I believe in serving.”
And promoting clients in any way he can, including telling their stories right on his website through essays and photos. He’s a believer in their success, and he understands their struggles.
“I’ve been climbing these steps for so long, and every time I get to next step, it plateaus, and I feel like I’m not good enough or I don’t know anything,” he said. “But it’s not in a negative, self-defeating way — it’s like, ‘no, no, no, now it’s time to level up.’
“I don’t see people as they are; I see people at max potential,” he added. “So when I meet someone, I don’t see someone who is maxed out. When I’m talking to my clients, I’m not talking to them where they are today. I live in the future. So I’m sitting at the top of the mountain enjoying a coffee or tea with them at them being their best, at their peak. And that’s what I do for myself every day. Even the days when I don’t want to do it.”
“I can be having the worst day ever, but I can’t live in that space,” Connolly added. “That’s a skill you develop because I think everybody deals with the negativity, bad days, and you could turn it into impostor syndrome and curl up in a ball, or you could say, ‘well, here’s an opportunity to level up.’ There’s real value in communicating that to people, because everyone needs that.”
Early in life, and then as she started her career, Andrea Bordenca had no real desire to work within, let alone manage, the business started by her father, DESCO, a healthcare emergency field-service response organization.
“I said, ‘it’s your thing, dad, but I don’t know if it’s my thing,’” she recalled, adding that she did work for the company in various capacities in her youth, but began working professionally as a technical writer and later handled marketing for her husband, an artist specializing in murals.
But things changed when her father got sick with kidney cancer.
“I thought it was something I needed to do to help my parents … and I eventually fell in love with it,” said Bordenca, who joined her mother, a nurse practitioner, in managing the venture, taking the role of president. Over the past 20 years, Bordenca, now CEO and chairperson, has expanded its services from laboratories to hospitals, surgery centers, clinics, restaurants, and hotels, taking sales from $4 million to $10 million while greatly improving profitability as well.
But her success in growing the company and taking it the next level is not why she has been named a Difference Maker for 2025, although it’s certainly part of her inspiring story.
Instead, it’s what she’s done at the space that … well, also serves as DESCO’s headquarters, at 200 Venture Way in Hadley.
There, she has created what she calls the Venture Way Collaborative, with the emphasis on the last word in that title. There, she brings together diverse voices and provides both the physical space and positive environment for people to grow and achieve something she never felt growing up — a sense of belonging.
“I thrive when people of all ages, races, and genders are in dialogue together,” said Bordenca, a self-described entrepreneur, executive coach, and youth and adult leadership educator. “And I believe that the only way toward systemic change is by bringing all community stakeholders together to create change together.
“In my leadership and coaching, I work with people to develop a grounded and powerful presence rooted in what drives them,” she went on. “This starts with creating awareness of how people see themselves. That awareness then creates choice to move differently in the world. The root of all these conversations is care. What are we taking care of? What needs more care? A common missing piece in the leaders, parents, and kids I work with is ourselves.”
She does this at Venture Way Collaborative, which she described as far more than space that can be rented for events, team-building exercises, community gatherings, nonprofit fundraisers, and yoga classes — although it is that, too.
“We don’t just rent space; we form relationships,” she told BusinessWest, adding that the collaborative is a “space for community members to work, learn, and explore creative solutions together.”
It is home to DESCO, which now boasts more than 60 employees and serves businesses across the country, but also Generative Leadership Consulting, which she serves as managing partner, as well as Lead Yourself Youth and the Women’s Collaborative, two initiatives she founded to enable those constituencies to address issues and challenges together and collaboratively.
Ira Bryck, the former director of the family business center at UMass Amherst, and a Difference Maker himself in 2020, first met Bordenca as she came to the center to navigate the many complex issues that confront those in family businesses.
In nominating her for this award, he said she helps individuals, and especially young people, become the best versions of themselves.
“When I would try my best, I wasn’t as good as my peers or my sister, so I developed this narrative that I was stupid because I didn’t do well in school, and I would try my hardest.”
“Her leadership methodology combines neurolinguistics, mindfulness, emotional literacy, and somatics, and this comprehensive approach facilitates the embodiment of leadership rather than passive learning,” he wrote. “She focuses on developing awareness and creating choices for people to move differently in the world, with care at the root of all conversations.
“On top of all these ventures and accomplishments, she is a wholesome, kind, generous, curious, inspired person, who loves nothing more than to make the universe a better place to live,” Bryck went on, adding that the sum of her accomplishments and attributes certainly makes her a Difference Maker.
Life Lessons
Before talking about what she’s created with the Venture Way Collaborative, Bordenca first talked about her own life, her own struggles to try to fit in, and her inability to see her own worth, because the two are related.
She grew up in Medfield, an affluent community in Eastern Mass., and struggled, as she put it, to feel like she belonged.
“I wasn’t a great student, and my older sister was,” she recalled. “And even though I looked like everyone else — it was a white-dominant town — I really struggled in school, and I was seen as disruptive.
“When I would try my best, I wasn’t as good as my peers or my sister, so I developed this narrative that I was stupid because I didn’t do well in school, and I would try my hardest. And as a defense mechanism, I ended up skipping school, got into drugs, and was just disruptive to get the acceptance of my peers. I recognize that now as an adult, but didn’t know it at the time.”
Andrea Bordenca says her many programs are designed to give people something she didn’t have growing up — a sense of belonging. Photo by Bob Zemba, Simple Truth Imaging
A psychological determination would reveal that she had four learning disorders, including ADHD, and this helped her overcome feelings of being “stupid,” as she put it, although she struggled with various medications prescribed for her.
She credits her husband with helping her understand that “there was nothing crazy about me — I just didn’t fit into the box I was supposed to be fitting into in the town that we were in.
“That gave me some hope,” she went on, adding that she eventually took herself off those medications and “found what it was that gave me a sense of belonging.” And, in the simplest of terms, the Venture Way Collaborative was created to help others do the same.
She broke ground for the collaborative in 1999, just a few months before the pandemic arrived. COVID initially kept the facility from doing what it was designed to do — bring people together, in person — but Bordenca carried on through Zoom, and admits that her timing was actually good because she could not have afforded to build the facility amid the soaring construction costs that arrived post-pandemic.
As she mentioned earlier, it is physical space where people can meet, but it’s much more than that.
“It’s a physical space that manifests a place where I want to feel good, and where I want others, when they come in, to say, ‘this is good; I feel welcome.’ There are high ceilings, there’s expansiveness, there are bold colors — there are a lot of touches I curate so people feel like this is home,” she said. “I want it to be expansive and creative.”
That’s especially true of a large, 1,000-square-foot space that is called, among other things, the ‘classroom,’ or the ‘studio,’ depending on who’s using it.
“It has no furniture in it in, so there’s room to move around,” she said. “Everything I do has a component of awareness of the body and the nervous system, so I want to make sure that, when I’m doing leadership training, people can feel their bodies and are aware of their movement because that’s not something we’re taught to be aware of.”
The space now hosts groups ranging from the Queer Valley Library to the Women’s Fund of Western Massachusetts; from the Zonta Club of Quaboag Valley to Faces of Medicine, which shares the journeys, successes, and struggles of Black female physicians.
Building Emotional Resilience
Beyond her work at DESCO and as a landlord at 200 Venture Way, Bordenca is also a coach, working with both adults and young people. As part of these efforts, she created Lead Yourself Youth and the Women’s Collaborative to bring people together and create dialogue.
The former is not an official nonprofit, but rather an informal entity that provides professional development. Bordenca has worked with groups ranging from Girl Scouts to students and educators at the MacDuffie School in Granby and the Hadley school system, and focuses on normalizing different emotions, ranging from anxiety to frustration, using hands-on activities like juggling and sewing.
“A lot of it is helping people build that emotional resilience through these safe spaces of practice and simulation,” she said, adding that she does the same with women, a discussion that will take her to … golf.
“I talk to women professionals who say, ‘I golf, and I hate golfing,’” she explained, adding that she once put herself in that category. “And I say, ‘why do you golf, then?’ And they say, ‘that’s where the decisions are made.’
“I’ll say, ‘if this isn’t your thing, what is something that you can create that might attract some golfers and maybe non-golfers that are also influencers, decision makers, people that you’re trying to close deals with?’” she went on. “‘Can you create another event, like a hike or even a trip to an amusement park?’”
That’s just one example of how she encourages people to help cultivate communities by being creative and focused on knocking down walls instead of doors.
Overall, Bordenca said her broad focus is on helping individuals of all ages, genders, and life paths find common ground and that sense of belonging that eluded her in her youth.
“If people don’t have the people around them that have the same value system, they’re not going to get very far because they’re just going to have people tell them they’re wrong or ‘that’s the wrong way,’ which was a lot of my childhood,” she explained. “The work that I do with other children and also educators and other organizations is … ‘hey, there’s no right or wrong way; it’s just based on values and your compass.’
“If you work in an organization, if you live in a community, if you’re part of a family whose value systems are different, who are the people that you can find that share your values so you don’t feel crazy, isolated, alone, or so you don’t have to compete or fight so hard? It doesn’t have to be that way.
“As social animals, we need other people,” she continued. “And just because of the way we’re taught and we learn, I think it’s really difficult, especially post-COVID with all the social and emotional issues that children and people are having, especially Gen Z, to know how important it is, and how possible it is, to find the people who are just like you.”
Helping individuals do that — helping people find that sense of belonging — is just one of many reasons why Bordenca is truly a Difference Maker.
Twenty-six years ago, Sheryl Blancato opened an animal shelter. And quickly realized it wasn’t enough.
“The initial plan was, ‘hey, we’re going to help the animals.’ But I quickly realized that it’s a band-aid. There was a much bigger issue here, and I’m a root-cause person. And the root cause is, ‘why are these animals coming into the shelter?’ That’s why we started doing vaccine clinics, because the animals were dying of preventable diseases, and we also did spay and neuter to prevent overpopulation.
“I still remember the day I went to my husband and said, ‘you know what? We need to start having hospitals because too many animals are being surrendered for perfectly preventable, treatable things, and it’s overwhelming the shelters. And if they’re already in a loving home, why not keep them there?’”
That idea became the foundation of everything Second Chance Animal Services does: addressing the root causes of why families have to give up their pets, and then keeping those families and pets together.
“You can never build a shelter big enough to help every animal in need,” Blancato said. “But you can build things to keep them out in the community where they’re already in loving homes.”
Programs like Homebound to the Rescue. The idea behind that initiative is that many senior citizens can’t afford to provide basic medical care for their pets or don’t have transportation to bring them to a vet. So Second Chance visits low-income senior-housing areas to offer low-cost vaccinations, testing, and other care, so the animals stay healthy and, just as important, don’t have to be surrendered because they can’t be properly cared for.
Then there’s Project Keep Me, which provides temporary housing for the pets of domestic-violence survivors, enabling their owners to seek safe housing arrangements while ensuring the well-being of their animal companions, and later returning them to a more stable environment. Without such a program, people in crisis often have to choose between staying in a dangerous situation and losing their beloved pets.
“I saw some people surrendering because they were in domestic-violence situations,” Blancato recalled. “They had somewhere to go, but they didn’t want to leave their pet, and they couldn’t bring their pet in this situation until they could sort things out,” she said. “So we hold on to those pets for up to 90 days, so they can go to their sister’s house, where their dog doesn’t get along with her cat. We’ll hold the dog for you; you get to your sister’s, get safe, get the assistance you need to get somewhere else, and then take your dog back.”
Second Chance now offers a similar service to veterans who need to seek medical treatment outside their home for an extended period. “If they can’t bring the animal with them, they’re not seeking the treatment. So we’re doing the same thing: we’ll give you up to 90 days so you can go get the treatment you need, get on the right path, and get your animal back.”
In fact, many of the programs that have evolved from that initial small shelter in East Brookfield were developed with the same goal in mind: to not only help animals find homes, but keep as many as possible from being surrendered at all.
This focus has seen Second Chance expand its reach dramatically over the past 26 years. It now encompasses four hospitals (in North Brookfield, Springfield, Worcester, and Southbridge) and serves more than 56,000 animals a year — a number that grows steadily every year.
Blancato has occasionally run into people who take the attitude of, ‘if they can’t afford pets, they shouldn’t have pets.’
“So I present examples. ‘What about your grandmother? Your grandfather died, and that little puppy, or that little cat, is their whole life.’ Or, ‘think about the single mom. I was a single mom at one time with three kids. That dog was everything to me. God forbid I had a serious medical issue; I didn’t have the money for it. But that dog meant so much to me and my kids at that time.’ And they say, ‘all right, I get it.’”
“The average family has less than $500 in emergency money. So, if you’re raising kids, $8,000 is a lot of money. I couldn’t have done it when I was a single mom. There’s no way. I would have had to make a really heart-wrenching decision.”
With tens of thousands of animal-loving families also getting it — and getting the help they need but could not otherwise afford — Blancato has made a career of keeping pets in loving homes. That’s the work of a true Difference Maker.
Paws for Concern
Blancato has often told the story of a puppy named Buster that she — then a single mother of three — adopted during her 20s, following a tough stretch in which her husband left and she battled cancer. Because Buster liked to escape his yard, Blancato got to know East Brookfield’s animal-control officer, and they became friends — and he eventually offered her a job as an animal-control assistant. He retired not long after, and she took over his role.
She’d pick up a lot of strays that were never claimed, and she struggled to get them medical care and into homes, so she decided to start a shelter on a neighbor’s donated plot of land. By that time, she had adopted another dog, Dusty, who had been abused.
Project Good Dog matches behaviorally needy dogs with inmates in pre-release programs at local correctional institutions. Photo by Bob Zemba, Simple Truth Imaging
So, while raising three children — and, by that time, two stepchildren — she took $400, raised whatever else she could, and built the adoption center that still sits on the property today.
The shelter was offering spay/neuter services and vaccines in the early years, but Blancato realized she could do more to keep pets and families together through expanded veterinary care. The first hospital was built in neighboring North Brookfield in 2010 and expanded to full-service care in 2013, and the other three hospitals followed, giving Second Chance a broad footprint across Central and Western Mass.
In addition to the hospitals and the programs mentioned earlier, Second Chance offers the Helping Hands outreach, which assists dozens of rescue sites, shelters, and municipal facilities by providing low-cost spay/neuter and vet care; Project Good Dog, which matches behaviorally needy dogs with inmates in pre-release programs at local correctional institutions, providing 24/7 care and training for the dogs while teaching handlers patience, compassion, and responsibility; a pet-food pantry; mobile adoption, education, and vet-care events; and much more.
The low-cost hospital care for families that need it can be the difference between keeping a pet and losing it. For example, the week before Blancato spoke with BusinessWest, a patient’s dog had swallowed a baby’s pacifier.
“That’s a $6,000 to $8,000 surgery in emergency. They didn’t have it. We were able to do it for $1,000. That’s life-changing for them,” she recalled. “The average family has less than $500 in emergency money. So, if you’re raising kids, $8,000 is a lot of money. I couldn’t have done it when I was a single mom. There’s no way. I would have had to make a really heart-wrenching decision.”
Other area veterinary hospitals have actually sent patients to Second Chance to avoid what Blancato called “economic euthanasia.” And the model of subsidizing care for low-income patients is catching on in other places, she added, though it’s not for the faint of heart.
“When someone says, ‘we want to start a hospital,’ I’m like, ‘OK, here’s the deal. It’s expensive, it’s hard, and you have to have a business mind because we work on a very tight budget.’”
That budget — about $10 million annually — comes in several forms: grants, individual donations, legacy gifts from people who pass away and leave money, as well as hospital co-payments and adoption fees. “We don’t get enough in the hospitals to sustain it all, so we need those donations.”
“What people don’t realize is the cost of medical equipment in veterinary medicine is equal to that in human medicine. It’s very expensive, and it doesn’t last forever. We also want to attract the best vets, the best techs, the best staff. And they need to get paid.”
And many clients do, indeed, pay full cost, which helps to subsidize those who need a hand.
Second Chance has gained national attention; it was one of just 12 organizations in the U.S. chosen by PetSmart Charities to be part of its inaugural Accelerator grant program. “The three-year, $1.1 million grant will go toward upgrades in our hospital, as well as helping expand the staff from 12 vets to 26 last year, while increasing total staffing by 20%,” Blancato said.
“That’s huge. What people don’t realize is the cost of medical equipment in veterinary medicine is equal to that in human medicine. It’s very expensive, and it doesn’t last forever. We also want to attract the best vets, the best techs, the best staff. And they need to get paid. They have bills to pay, too. So it’s staff, it’s equipment, it’s overhead. We have to raise all that money.”
Team Effort
Blancato, like several other Difference Makers this year, was quick to deflect the idea of this award as an individual one.
“This is not about me. We have over 100 staff, we have hundreds of volunteers … it’s a massive thing now. And what I tell staff when they come on is, ‘this is not just a job. This is the one job that, at the end of every day, you can get in your car, take 30 seconds, and think about at least one impact you had that day. It could be on a person. Maybe you were able to save that pet.’”
Like the family who brought in an ailing, 17-year-old cat, ready to say goodbye to an animal they adored. But Second Chance ran a quality-of-life exam and found the cat had thyroid disease, which was very treatable with medication.
“To be prepared to say goodbye and then take the cat home, that’s life-changing for those people. We gave them another two, maybe three years,” she went on. “We have hundreds of those stories. I always tell the staff when they come on, ‘yes, you’re getting a paycheck’ — we take good care of our staff. But they also get to have that rewarding experience — every day, something is going to be life-changing.”
Meanwhile, Second Chance’s adoption center has a 99.9% live release rate, an incredibly high number for a no-kill shelter.
“It’s amazing. As animal control, I used to pick up litters of puppies running down the street, and I just wanted to keep puppies off the street,” Blancato recalled. “To watch it evolve, with all the innovation and the programs and how many people are impacted, you sit back and go, ‘wow.’
“I always tell people, you can’t say, ‘I’m just one person. I can’t make a difference,’ because that’s not true. Yes, you’re one person, and yes, you have your limitations, but if you have a vision that people can see, then others will join in. That’s how this has become what it is. It’s your vision, then it’s other people coming out of nowhere, and the next thing you know, you have a whole army behind you. And that’s really exciting.”
This was a fundraiser staged by Holyoke-based Providence Ministries for the Needy (PMN). Area ‘celebrities’ would stroll down a runway modeling clothes from area stores, with proceeds from ticket sales benefiting the nonprofit, which provides services ranging from a soup kitchen to sober homes for men.
Jennie Adamczyk was working for Ross Insurance, handling sales and marketing, and, through her work to bolster the agency’s social-media profile, she had reached that ‘celebrity’ status and was asked, along with her boss at Ross, to become one of the models.
So she did, sporting some offerings from Old Navy, and, in the process, getting to know some of the leaders at PMN and learning much more about its multi-faceted mission. She became intrigued, and soon she would get far more involved.
Fast-forwarding quite a bit (we’ll go back in more detail later), she became its executive director five years ago and commenced what could be called a turnaround for the agency, greatly improving morale among staff members, creating an even sharper focus on its mission, and nurturing a culture of caring.
“I’ve always tried to lead by example here — ‘this is how I want you talk to people, this is how I want you to engage with people.’ Everyone gets treated with dignity and respect,” said Adamczyk, who firmly believes that she and her staff members embody the spirit of Sr. Margaret McCleary, SP, founder of PMN, an agency affiliated with and sponsored by the Sisters of Providence.
“We model ourselves after Sister Margaret: if you see a need, you meet that need to the best of your ability,” she said. “And there’s no judgment. It’s not our job to decide if someone is worthy of help; that’s not what we do. We make sure that they’re fed, their stomachs are full, and we send them on their way. That is the attitude we take across all our programs, and it comes from her.”
We talked with Sr. Margaret, who described Adamczyk as the right person in the right place at the right time.
“She’s a wonderful administrator, but more than that, she has a courageous spirit,” she said. “This is needed when advocating for the least among us. Jennie hears the cries of the poor and speaks up for them and embraces them always with respect and dignity.”
Sr. Mary Caritas, SP, who served on the board of PMN for many years before recently stepping aside, agreed.
“She was never trained for the job she’s in, but she’s a natural. She took over at a time when we needed a real turnaround, and I’m very proud of the way she’s done that. She came into her own very quickly, and she’s just a natural leader,” she said, citing, as one example, how Adamczyk stepped forward when the city of Holyoke needed a pop-up warming shelter and converted the chapel in the former convent that serves as home to many PMN programs for that purpose.
“She takes people off the street like that when it’s cold, and there’s discipline, there’s love, and respect, but people have to abide by the rules,” Sr. Caritas went on. “And, for the most part, people do that willingly because there’s so much love and concern for who they are.”
“We model ourselves after Sister Margaret: if you see a need, you meet that need to the best of your ability. And there’s no judgment. It’s not our job to decide if someone is worthy of help; that’s not what we do.”
Adamczyk described her work as “challenging, exhausting, and fulfilling,” essentially because of the constituencies being served and the circumstances under which they come to Providence Ministries for help.
“You’re working in an environment where you never, ever see anyone at their best,” she explained. “People are coming in, and they’re depressed, they’re hungry, they’re financially crippled, they have an abuse history … the list goes on and on.
“No one’s at their best, and that takes a toll,” she went on. “But if we can instill a little bit of hope, a little bit of joy into the people we serve, then it’s all worth it.”
This is the attitude she brings to her work, the attitude she has instilled in her staff, the attitude that permeates this agency. And for making it so prevalent, so ingrained in the fabric of PMN, Adamczyk is truly a Difference Maker.
A Perfect Match
As she talked about her not-so-subtle career change, going from insurance sales and marketing to being the program manager at Providence Ministries for the Needy, Adamczyk said that, on many levels, and to most people, it didn’t make a whole lot of sense.
Jennie Adamczyk says she patterns her approach to managing Providence Ministries after its founder, Sr. Margaret McCleary (right).
Indeed, this was a lateral move. The salary wasn’t any higher, and the benefits were no better. But deep down, she knew this move was one she needed to make, personally and professionally.
“It felt right, like I was supposed to be here,” she told BusinessWest. “It felt like home — this is where I’m supposed to be — and that this mission is what I’m supposed to be doing. There was an overwhelming sense of peace being here; I felt that this is where God wanted me to be.”
Flashing back to her participation in Fashion for Compassion, Adamczyk said that, soon thereafter, the director at Providence Ministries asked her to join the agency’s fundraising committee, which she did, helping to create an enduring fundraiser called Retro Game Night, at which participants take part in old classics like the Match Game, Password, Name That Tune, and others.
Success in that realm led that same executive director to ask Adamczyk to become program director of PMN, an agency she knew about but had never visited. In fact, she practically had to ask for directions because she hadn’t been to that section of Holyoke, even though she lived in the city.
She was soon promoted to associate director when the director went out on maternity leave. And when that individual left, she became interim director, and then director when the candidate initially awarded that position did not pan out.
“She’s a wonderful administrator, but more than that, she has a courageous spirit. This is needed when advocating for the least among us. Jennie hears the cries of the poor and speaks up for them and embraces them always with respect and dignity.”
Today, Adamczyk leads the many programs at PMN, which fall into two categories — life-preserving and life-changing. The former includes Kate’s Kitchen, which served 74,000 people last year, and has seen demand of its services rise amid inflation and other economic woes; Margaret’s Pantry, which distributed 2.7 million pounds of food last year and has likewise seen demand for its services soar; St. Jude’s Clothing Center; and foodWorks@Kate’s Kitchen, a culinary training program that offers unemployed and underemployed individuals job training in the culinary field.
Meanwhile, the latter includes three sober houses for men, Loreto House, Broderick House, and McCleary Manor.
In addition, there is that pop-up warming shelter, a unique facility to say the least, and one of many programs in the former convent, which now, thanks to Adamczyk, also houses the agency’s administrative offices — before, they were at McCleary Manor, behind Providence Hospital — a move that speaks to her approach to this agency and its mission.
“When I first came here, I requested that my office be down here, because how can you run the programs if you’re not where the programs are?” she said, adding that all staff is at the Hamilton Street facility, and board meetings are staged there as well.
Warming to Her Caring Approach
Administering the agency’s programs is what Adamczyk does for a living. How she and her staff administer them is what makes her a Difference Maker.
As she talked about the ‘how’ element to her work, she started by saying, “I’m not corporate,” and returned to her thoughts about her approach and guiding philosophy, echoing that of Sr. Margaret McCleary.
“I tend to act when there’s a need, much like Sr. Margaret would have,” she said, adding that she doesn’t always follow all the policies and procedures when adding or amending a program. “That’s sometimes difficult to do in this kind of world; sometimes you just need to act and make a decision.”
Jennie Adamczyk with staff members, from left: Michael Clark, facilities manager; Stephanie Trombley, marketing coordinator; and Axel Fontanez, housing manager. Photo by Bob Zemba, Simple Truth Imaging
Such was the case when she decided that Kate’s Kitchen would serve dinner in addition to lunch — because the need was (and is) there, and so was the infrastructure.
“We were already serving lunch, we had the staff … it just seemed like a no-brainer to open the doors for dinner as well,” she said, adding that this mindset guides her in everything she does, and in every program within PMN.
The pop-up warming shelter — open when the temperature dips below 10 degrees or the wind chill falls below zero, and with a capacity for 25 beds and more if need arises, which it often does — is another example.
It’s not your typical shelter in most respects — everything from allowing married couples to stay together to providing hot showers; from making popcorn and hot chocolate for the guests and popping in a movie to providing fresh clothes and food.
“Our job with the pop-up shelter is not to rehabilitate anyone,” Adamczyk explained. “A lot of them are coming in and using; they will actively detox with us through the evening, but they’d rather be sick than be out in the cold.
“We had a mother and her autistic son stay with us this last stretch of open nights,” she went on. “They came to us in the morning and said, ‘we want to thank you for opening because we would have died in our tent last night, it was so cold; I’m afraid we wouldn’t have woken up.’
As for the movies, they’re part of larger efforts to provide those who need the shelter “a moment of feeling normal; it doesn’t feel like they’re not seen,” she explained.
“I’ve never myself experienced that, but I can only imagine that walking through a day and feeling as if no one sees you — and if they do, it’s a negative connotation — would be pretty heavy,” she continued. “So we try to be as loving and positive as we can those shelter nights.”
Meanwhile, operation and staffing of this shelter speaks to the way Adamczyk has improved morale at PMN and created a culture of not only giving back, but going perhaps above and beyond. Indeed, there isn’t a separate staff for the shelter, she explained, adding that regular staff who volunteer to work there do so knowing they go straight from that detail to their regular job.
“I have many staff that are going to work overnight and still have their day job in the morning,” she said. “They are giving of their time, energy, and resources to meet the needs of these people. They say they do it because I do it.”
Bottom Line
Adamczyk likes to say she’s a Protestant living in a Catholic world.
She recalled that, when she reminded of Sr. Caritas of this, she jokingly responded, “well, everyone is flawed in some way.”
She certainly doesn’t consider it a flaw that, on occasion, she may not follow all the rules or procedures when adding a program or a service. Like Sr. Margaret, when Adamczyk sees a need, she tries to meet it.
That makes her the right manager for PMN — and also a Difference Maker.
Indeed, as the leadership team at BusinessWest was finalizing plans to create a new recognition program back in 2009, all that remained was a name. And as they talked about the individuals, nonprofits, and institutions that could, and would, be honored in the years to come, Difference Makers was the logical fit.
It says it all, and it describes, efficiently and succinctly, the dozens of honorees recognized since we launched this endeavor 16 years ago. It’s the same with the eight honorees for 2025, all of whom are making a difference in their own way, as is made clear in the stories in the special center section of this issue. They are:
• Jennie Adamczyk, executive director of Providence Ministries for the Needy (PMN). She oversees programs that include a soup kitchen, a pantry, sober homes for men, and a warming shelter. But it’s not what she does that makes her a Difference Maker, but show she does it, with determination and imagination that mirrors that of PMN founder Sr. Margaret McCleary: if she sees a need, she works aggressively to meet it.
• Sheryl Blancato, CEO of Second Chance Animal Services. She’s a true believer that all animals deserve a second chance, and from humble beginnings 26 years ago, she and her team have created a wide-ranging nonprofit, including four veterinary hospitals, that helps more than 56,000 animals each year. Her goal has always been to help not just pets, but their families, in an effort to keep them together.
• Andrea Bordenca, CEO of DESCO Service. Yes, she’s the leader of a successful healthcare emergency field-service response organization, but she’s a Difference Maker because of her many initiatives to bring people together, create dialogue, build community, and help young people, women, and other constituencies become the best versions of themselves.
• Mychal Connolly, owner of Stand Out Truck. He’s a serial entrepreneur and the successful owner of a unique marketing business, but he’s a Difference Maker because of the way he’s become a mentor, role model, and true inspiration to aspiring entrepreneurs, particularly young people, and for the way he’s helped many of them overcome challenges and get off the ground or to the next level.
• John Delaney, director of Ride to Remember. When a fellow Springfield police officer, Kevin Ambrose, died in the line of duty, Delaney helped create what has become one of the region’s premier bicycling events — not a competitive ride, but a communal one that has raised awareness of fallen heroes and money for a host of important charitable causes across the region.
• John Doleva, president and CEO of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. When he took this job, he expected to stay a few years and then return to the sporting-goods world from which he came. Instead, he’s stayed more than 20 years, leading the Hall through myriad challenges while also becoming greatly involved in the Western Mass. community, especially with programs involving young people and sports.
• The Michael J. Dias Foundation. From the crushing loss of her son to drug addiction, Grace Dias created a supportive community of fellow grieving parents — and then created something more: an organization that operates three (soon to be four) sober homes where individuals in recovery can develop resilience, responsibility, accountability, and a chance to move on to a successful life of independence.
• Dan Moriarty, president and CEO of Monson Savings Bank. A star athlete in high school and college, and a participant in marathons and Ironman competitions today, he makes frequent use of sports phrases and metaphors, especially those involving the importance of teamwork. He practices what he preaches and leads by example, and has built a strong team that is committed to getting involved and giving back.
SPRINGFIELD — Tickets are now on sale for the 17th annual Difference Makers awards gala, hosted by BusinessWest. The event will take place on Wednesday, April 9 at 5:30 p.m. at the Log Cabin in Holyoke.
The 17th annual Difference Makers program is sponsored by Burkhart Pizzanelli, the Royal Law Firm, Trinity Health Of New England/Mercy Medical Center, and TommyCar Auto Group.
The Difference Makers program was launched in 2009 to recognize and celebrate the work of individuals, groups, businesses, and institutions that are positively impacting the Pioneer Valley. As our winners have shown, there are many ways to make a difference within our community: through work on initiatives to improve quality of life; through success in business, public service, or education; through contributions that inspire others to get involved; through imaginative efforts to help solve one or more societal issues; or through a combination of the above.
For more information, call Natasha Mercado-Santana, Marketing and Events manager, at (413) 781-8600, ext. 100, or email[email protected].
SPRINGFIELD — Do you know someone who is truly making a difference in the Western Mass. region? BusinessWest invites you to nominate an individual or group for its 17th annual Difference Makers program. Nominations for the class of 2025 must be received by Monday, Dec. 16.
Difference Makers was launched in 2009 as a way to recognize the contributions of agencies and individuals who are contributing to quality of life in this region. Past honorees have come from dozens of business and nonprofit sectors, proving there’s no limit to the ways people can impact their communities.
So, let us know who you think deserves to be recognized as a Difference Maker in our upcoming class by visiting businesswest.com/difference-makers-nomination-form to complete the nomination form. Honorees will be profiled in the Feb. 17 issue of BusinessWest and celebrated at a gala in the spring.
SPRINGFIELD — Do you know someone who is truly making a difference in the Western Mass. region? BusinessWest invites you to nominate an individual or group for its 17th annual Difference Makers program. Nominations for the class of 2025 must be received by Monday, Dec. 16.
Difference Makers was launched in 2009 as a way to recognize the contributions of agencies and individuals who are contributing to quality of life in this region. Past honorees have come from dozens of business and nonprofit sectors, proving there’s no limit to the ways people can impact their communities.
So, let us know who you think deserves to be recognized as a Difference Maker in our upcoming class by visiting businesswest.com/difference-makers-nomination-form to complete the nomination form. Honorees will be profiled in the Feb. 17 issue of BusinessWest and celebrated at a gala in the spring.
SPRINGFIELD — Do you know someone who is truly making a difference in the Western Mass. region? BusinessWest invites you to nominate an individual or group for its 17th annual Difference Makers program. Nominations for the class of 2025 must be received by Monday, Dec. 16.
Difference Makers was launched in 2009 as a way to recognize the contributions of agencies and individuals who are contributing to quality of life in this region. Past honorees have come from dozens of business and nonprofit sectors, proving there’s no limit to the ways people can impact their communities.
So, let us know who you think deserves to be recognized as a Difference Maker in our upcoming class by visiting businesswest.com/difference-makers-nomination-form to complete the nomination form. Honorees will be profiled in the Feb. 17 issue of BusinessWest and celebrated at a gala in the spring.
BusinessWest Editor Joseph Bednar interviews with 2024 Difference Makers: Rock 102, Paul Lambert from Springfield Symphony Orchestra, Beth Welty from the Springfield Chamber Players and Shannon Rudder from MLK Family Services.
BusinessWest Editor Joseph Bednar interviews with 2024 Difference Makers: Scott Keiter of Keiter, Linda Dunlavy of Franklin Regional Council of Governments, Matt Bannister of PeoplesBank and Delcie Bean of Paragus Strategic I.T. Special Thanks to GCAI
SPRINGFIELD — BusinessWest will present its 16th annual Difference Makers Gala at the Log Cabin in Holyoke tonight, April 10. The event is sold out.
Since 2009, BusinessWest has been recognizing the work of individuals, groups, businesses, and institutions through this recognition program. The 2024 Difference Makers — profiled in the Feb. 19 issue of BusinessWest and at businesswest.com — are:
• Matt Bannister, senior vice president, Marketing and Corporate Responsibility, PeoplesBank;
• Delcie Bean, CEO, Paragus Strategic I.T.;
• Linda Dunlavy, executive director, Franklin Regional Council of Governments;
• Dr. Fred and Mary Kay Kadushin, co-founders, Feed the Kids;
• Scott Keiter, CEO, Keiter;
• the staff of Rock 102;
• Shannon Rudder, president and CEO, Martin Luther King Jr. Family Services; and
• Springfield Symphony Orchestra and Springfield Chamber Players.
Partner sponsors for the 2024 Difference Makers include Burkhart, Pizzanelli, P.C., Keiter, Mercy Medical Center/Trinity Health, the Royal Law Firm, and TommyCar Auto Group. Supporting sponsors include the Springfield Thunderbirds and Westfield Bank.
For 16 years now, BusinessWest has been recognizing and celebrating the work of individuals, groups, businesses, and institutions through its Difference Makers program, with one goal in mind: to show the many ways one can, in fact, make a difference within their community.
The stories of the class of 2024, like the 15 cohorts before it, are all different, but the common thread is the passion and commitment exhibited by each honoree to improve quality of life for those in this region and make it a better place to live, work, and conduct business.
The stories are inspiring in many different ways, whether it’s Matt Bannister’s deep commitment to area nonprofits or Shannon Rudder’s lifelong pursuit of equity and access for all; whether it’s the work of Fred and Mary Kay Kadushin and the staff of Rock 102 to fight hunger or the ways Delcie Bean and Scott Keiter use their business success to impact others; whether it’s Linda Dunlavy’s hard work on tough regional issues or the significant impact of Springfield Symphony Orchestra and Springfield Chamber Players on the economic and cultural health of Western Mass.
We invite you to read these stories below. All of the 2024 Difference Makers have made an impact — real, tangible, often life-changing impact — in this region that we call home.
You can also help us celebrate the honorees in person on Thursday, April 10 at the Log Cabin in Holyoke. Tickets cost $95 each, with reserved tables of 10-12 available. For more event details and to reserve tickets, go HERE
Thank you to our sponsors — Burkhart, Pizzanelli, P.C., Keiter, Mercy Medical Center/Trinity Health, the Royal Law Firm, and TommyCar Auto Group — for making this program possible.
Thank you to our partner sponsors: Burkhart Pizzanelli, P.C., Keiter, Mercy Medical Center/Trinity Health, the Royal Law Firm, TommyCar Auto Group, and our supporting sponsors: Springfield Thunderbirds and Westfield bank.
They’re Keeping Music Alive in New Ways for Future Generations
Springfield Symphony Orchestra President and CEO Paul Lambert and Springfield Chamber Players Chair Beth Welty.
Beth Welty said the musicians just wanted to play.
With the Springfield Symphony Orchestra’s leadership and musicians locked in a labor dispute in 2021 and 2022, the players were willing to perform under the old contract until a new one was settled, but the SSO wouldn’t agree.
“At this point, the pandemic had subsided enough that all the other orchestras in the Northeast had come back to work, audiences were showing up, and we decided we needed to do something,” Welty said. “We were very worried if there was no symphonic music in Springfield — out of sight, out of mind — people would forget about us. We had to keep this going.”
So the musicians started staging shows on their own — both at Symphony Hall and at smaller venues around the region — churches, the Westfield Atheneum, anywhere they could draw an audience.
“We were playing at all these little places, constantly expanding to new communities and venues, and bringing live chamber music to as many people as we possibly could in Western Mass.,” said Welty, an SSO violinist who headed up the effort known as MOSSO, or Musicians of the Springfield Symphony Orchestra.
“So many people, including members of my board, have told me, ‘the first time I ever heard a symphony orchestra was in school.”
Well, you might know the story after that — the SSO and the musicians’ union struck a two-year deal last spring to bring full symphony concerts back to downtown Springfield, which proved gratifying to SSO President and CEO Paul Lambert, who never considered the musicians his enemies as they worked out their labor differences.
“I grew up in the Actors’ Equity Association. I’m a union member. And I believe in organized labor, especially in the performing arts. You want to make sure that everyone is well taken care of,” he said. “At the same time, I’ve been a businessman for a long time, so I’m very well aware of the economic realities and challenges that the performing-arts business is going through, especially in these eccentric times we’re still living through.”
The relief on both sides, in fact, was palpable. But the return of concerts to Symphony Hall was only part of the story. The other part was the continued existence of MOSSO under a new name — Springfield Chamber Players — and its continuing mission to bring smaller chamber concerts to venues around the region, including schools.
“We’re interested in promoting the voices that don’t get heard as much but are great composers — music by Black composers, composers of color, women composers,” Welty said. “We’re mixing in composers people have some familiarity with, but also bringing them composers they haven’t heard of, even living composers.”
So as the music reverberates around the region once again, BusinessWest has chosen to honor both the Springfield Symphony Orchestra and Springfield Chamber Players as Difference Makers for 2024 — not because they settled a labor agreement last year, but because of how important the performing arts are to the region, and how important both entities are to filling that role, hopefully for generations to come.
The Springfield Chamber Players string quartet includes Miho Matsuno, Robert Lawrence, Martha McAdams, and Patricia Edens. (Photo by Gregory Jones)
“When people come to the concerts, and I may open with remarks, I ask people, ‘just for a couple of hours, turn off your cell phones and let it go,’” Lambert said. “It’s like therapy — go listen to some beautiful music. For a few hours, just relax and drink it in. We just need that so badly right now.”
Welty agreed. “Music is a big part of life, and I want that for everyone. It doesn’t have to be classical — we did a combo jazz-classical concert,” she noted, before citing Duke Ellington’s famous line about how genre doesn’t matter, and that “there are simply two kinds of music, good music and the other kind.”
And good music — good live music — truly makes a difference in a community.
Generation Next
Lambert recalled being in the fourth grade and attending a symphony concert; in fact, it’s an especially vivid, formative memory. So he’s grateful for a two-year, $280,000 grant from the city last spring to help the SSO create educational programming for youth.
“We are deeply involved in finding creative solutions, ways to reach out. This is a giant opportunity to reach all kinds of members of our community who might like to learn more about music — classical music, symphonic music, all the various forms of music that we can touch,” he said.
Meanwhile, through a program called Beethoven’s Buddies, people can donate money toward free tickets for those who might not be able to afford one. “Whatever your situation is, we want you to come to these concerts to hear this music and have a wonderful time,” he explained. “We’re excited about that. It’s also another way that we can reach into our community to pull in people as donors and sponsors.”
“You come together, and the concert happens, and it’s magic. It’s that one-time experience of being together in a space where this beautiful thing happens. It’s special.”
A long-time program called the Springfield Symphony Youth Orchestra is going strong as well, Lambert said, and the SSO just hired an education director, Caitlin Meyer, who has been engaging with public schools and colleges on everything from internships to educational programming and performances.
“That’s a critical piece in the equation,” Lambert added. “So many people, including members of my board, have told me, ‘the first time I ever heard a symphony orchestra was in school.’”
Meanwhile, Springfield Chamber Players recently presented educational outreach concerts at the Berkshire School in Sheffield and the Community Music School of Springfield.
Meeting young people where they are is simply a matter of survival for performing-arts organizations, said Mark Auerbach, Marketing and Public Relations director for Springfield Chamber Players.
“A lot of people who go to symphonies and come to our concerts are on the older side. And it’s partly because the music programs in schools are not what they were 30 or 40 years ago,” he noted. “If we can get family concerts going, educational concerts going, and interest kids and young adults to come to concerts, hopefully they will stay and grow with us.”
Welty is glad the SSO is doing grant-funded youth outreach because the budget for Springfield Chamber Players is limited, so it needs to be a group effort.
“I’ve been with the symphony 40 years, and we used to have a really robust school presence. We’d send a trio or a quartet to play for kids, talk to them, and answer questions. And they later came to Symphony Hall to hear the whole orchestra,” she recalled. “I think they want to bring that back. We have to be developing the next generation of audience members.”
Leaders of both Springfield Symphony Orchestra and Springfield Chamber Players are gratified to be bringing music back to both Symphony Hall (pictured) and smaller venues around the region.
Part of the growth and outreach is simply broadening the definition of what an SSO concert is, Lambert told BusinessWest.
“A lot of folks think of a certain type of music from Western Europe, from the 18th and 19th century. And I love that music. I love Mozart. I love Brahms. I love Beethoven. I love Schubert. I’m thrilled to hear that music, personally,” he said. “But I’ve become increasingly aware of the streams of music traditions that exist all around the world in different cultures and different backgrounds that might appeal to all kinds of folks. So we are trying to pull those various streams together in our programming opportunities.”
To that end, the SSO has begun assembling some hybrid concerts that offer a mixture of traditions, like the classical-jazz fusion explored at the Martin Luther King Jr. celebration concert in January, and a Havana Nights show earlier this month that featured Latin jazz and Afro-Cuban rythms.
“The MLK concert had a marvelously diverse audience. We are thrilled when we see new people coming in,” Lambert said. “At our Juneteenth concert that we did last year, we had so many people telling us, ‘I’ve never been to one of your concerts before; I’ve never even been to Symphony Hall before.’ It’s thrilling to us to get those folks coming in to hear this beautiful music.
“Our pops concerts do really well, and we’re going to see what we can explore with those, with different genres of music,” he added. “At the same time, we’re never going to lose track of that beautiful, traditional repertoire that people, including me, love so much. That’s the core of who we are.”
A Resource of Note
Welty noted that Springfield Chamber Players has brought an eclectic spirit to its offerings as well, such as “Johnny Appleseed,” a composition by local composer Clifton Noble Jr. based on Janet Yolen’s book of the same name. That concert will take place outdoors in Longmeadow — the legendary character’s hometown — on May 12.
Whatever the venue, she is passionate about exposing more people to good music — whatever that means to Duke Ellington or anyone else — and to get them into music at younger ages.
“I wish every kid could take lessons on an instrument for a few years. You really learn so much. Problem-solving, analyzing, listening, observing. Music is very mathematical, too. Music education would boost everybody,” she said.
“I really think of arts organizations — music, a ballet company, whatever it is — as a resource for everyone,” she added. “You can’t just go to work every day and then go home and watch TV. That’s a boring life. You want something more. And kids that see live music get interested. They want to try it themselves.”
A thriving performance culture is also an economic driver, Auerbach noted.
“It’s essential that Springfield Symphony Orchestra survives because it’s the only live, nonprofit performing-arts organization in Springfield,” he said. “Without the arts, we’d have trouble attracting new residents and new businesses. And there’s a lot of economic spinoff — you go out, first you pay to eat, you pay to park, you may go out to drink afterwards. The musicians, if they are local, spend money here. If they’re not local, they have to stay in hotels and eat here.”
Lambert agrees, even though the demographics for this art form are challenging right now — not just in Springfield, but everywhere.
“For a couple of years during the pandemic, folks stayed at home, and they got used to not coming out at night so much. You got used to staying home and being cozy in your armchair and watching Netflix. Coming back from that was always going to be a substantial challenge.”
But the rewards are great, he added.
“I used to think about how people make wine — you grow the grapes, and you tend the vineyards, and you design the bottle, and you do all of this work. And then you get to dinner and someone opens the cork and you drink it, and it’s gone. But it’s a beautiful thing for that moment.
“I often think about our experience the same way,” he went on. “All the work and the rehearsals and the planning and the tickets and this and that. But you come together, and the concert happens, and it’s magic. It’s that one-time experience of being together in a space where this beautiful thing happens. It’s special.”
President and CEO, Martin Luther King Jr. Family Services
She Wants to Galvanize a Community to Effect Positive Change
For her 12th birthday, Shannon Rudder didn’t want a present from her mother; instead, she wanted to redecorate her bedroom.
So she did, and she remembers some of the things she hung on the walls, like the Indigenous Ten Commandments and a picture of Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi, along with the quotation, “live, think, and act. Be inspired by humanity evolving toward a world of peace and harmony.”
She remembers that message because she internalized it at a young age, and it has informed every stop along her career journey — and the difference she has been able to make at each one.
“It’s embedded in me,” Rudder said as she sat with BusinessWest in her office at Martin Luther King Jr. Family Services in Springfield. “I feel like I can be a part of creating humanity in my immediate area. I might not be able to change the whole world or the whole city that I’m in, but I’ve always felt compelled to make an impact in a positive way with compassion and love. And I’m responsible for my thoughts because those become actions. Very early on, that idea led me to be a person of integrity, of deep compassion, and of advocacy.”
Perhaps that’s why, after considering a corporate career in college, she eventually embarked on a series of roles at organizations with a social mission, from MotherWoman and Teach Western Mass to Providence Ministries and, now, MLK Family Services, where she stepped a year ago into the very big shoes of the late Ronn Johnson, who steered the ship there for more than a decade (and was also honored by BusinessWest as a Difference Maker in 2020).
Simply put, Rudder said, “I just think I have been called to contribute to important causes, and I go after that.”
Her first nonprofit job was in Buffalo, N.Y., where she grew up, for an organization called Women for Human Rights & Dignity. “It just like cracked me open, like, ‘oh, the skills that I have and the compassion that I have … they can be aligned, and I get paid to do awesome, impactful work?’
“I might not be able to change the whole world or the whole city that I’m in, but I’ve always felt compelled to make an impact in a positive way with compassion and love.”
“That was all about women’s empowerment,” she added. “We did alternatives-to-incarceration programs and domestic-violence support and non-traditional education and housing. I was really young, and I had a little baby, and I was doing this good work, but also learning how to run a business.”
Since then, Rudder has taken care to align with causes that are important to her, moving into work with fair housing and civil rights in the Buffalo region before moving to Western Mass., where her first pathway to organizational leadership was at MotherWoman, a nonprofit focused on maternal health and well-being, where she served as executive director.
Later, she was executive director for Providence Ministries Inc., a nonprofit advocating for and supporting marginalized populations across programs dedicated to food security, addiction recovery, housing, clothing, and workforce development. That role opened her eyes to many types of need and further honed her sharp sense of empathy.
“I remember my grandmother saying, ‘but for God’s grace, there go I’ — meaning, in a blink of an eye, your situation could change, and you could be on the other side of needing services like that,” she said. “We’re all part of the same journey.”
Shannon Rudder with the two youth emcees from last month’s MLK Day celebration.
She also served as deputy director of Teach Western Mass, a nonprofit startup working toward educational equity in partnership with more than 30 schools. Her duties included fiscal and operational oversight, knowledge-management systems, data and impact, communications, equity and belonging, human-resource management, overall team culture, and supervision of cross-functional teams.
“I’ve been really intentional about the causes that make a difference to me, approaching it from the perspective of, ‘OK, this agency’s mission is really clear, the heart and the compassion are here, and I get to make sure it lasts for a long time by building the infrastructure, the operations systems, the fundraising and return on investment, and all the important scaffolding that needs to be in place so that the business aspect of it can thrive.”
The clear thread woven through all these roles has been a focus on equity and making sure everyone has access to the resources they need to live healthy, meaningful lives, she explained. “I picked causes that are doing the important work of amplifying the voices of those that have often been silenced or marginalized.”
By using her own voice, compassion, and business acumen to do so, Rudder has become a true Difference Maker.
Lifetime Support
At MLK Family Services, she shares with Johnson, her late predecessor, an approach to the work from a public-health standpoint, considering how the social determinants of health affect all areas of life.
“Sure, we can triage and put Band-Aids on stuff — people are hungry now, so let’s make sure they have food — but let’s dig a little deeper: how do we actually get a grocery store in an area that is in need?” she said.
“I remember my grandmother saying, ‘but for God’s grace, there go I’ — meaning, in a blink of an eye, your situation could change, and you could be on the other side of needing services like that. We’re all part of the same journey.”
“I also want to make sure that MLKFS as a whole, operations and programs, is operating from a trauma-informed place,” she went on, citing a philosophy that takes into account the unique, often traumatic experiences of an individual’s life and how that informs what they need.
“How do we approach our programs and ensure that the people working with our kids are helping to break that, or making sure that those kids have resources like mental-health counseling? How do we make sure we’re helping to embolden and empower them, and then actually building the bridge to get them access to the things that they need?”
The current programs offered by MLK Family Services are many and diverse, and include:
• The Family Stabilization Program, funded through the Department of Child and Family, offers support to families to keep their children safely at home and in the community by advocating for the well-being and rights of all children and ensuring parenting support.
Shannon Rudder’s work at MLK Family Services lifts up children in many ways.
• The MLK Food Pantry provides emergency food services to community members in Hampden County. The program relies on donations from grocery vendors and is a member of the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts. The pantry operates at the MLK Community Center weekly and also hosts the Food Bank’s mobile market twice monthly.
• The Clemente Course in Humanities is a transformative educational experience for adults — an opportunity to further their education and careers, advocate for themselves and their families, and engage actively in the cultural and political lives of their communities.
• The Historically Black College and University (HBCU) Tour helps young people explore their academic journey by visiting multiple college campuses in a single trip. These tours equip participants with a solid understanding of the history, culture, and traditions that have shaped the schools’ collective legacy. In addition, students, parents, and counselors are engaged in a year-long series of workshops.
• The King’s Kids afterschool programs serve up to 130 children at two locations. Programming is aimed at helping students become academically successful by nurturing their character building, critical-thinking skills, and creativity. Students are offered homework help, STEAM enrichment, literacy support, cultural experiences, and recreational and holistic well-being.
• Youth between ages 13 and 22 are invited to participate in the weekly Night Spot program, which empowers them to be critical thinkers and community builders while preparing them for life in high school, college, and beyond. Night Spot offers advocacy services for a variety of needs, including handling life’s complications, navigating the court system, and ensuring safety in a safe, drug-free environment.
• Beat the Odds is a Springfield-based youth mental-health coalition led in partnership with the Public Health Institute of Western Massachusetts. Hosted at MLK Family Services, the program focuses on breaking the cycle of stigma and barriers to youth mental healthcare. In 2023, this program launched a public-awareness campaign called “I Am Not My Mood.”
“How do we make sure we’re helping to embolden and empower them, and then actually building the bridge to get them access to the things that they need?”
• King’s Kids Summer Camp is a full-day camp for children ages 5-12. Meanwhile, a new partnership with Springfield Empowerment Zone schools provides summer enrichment programs to Springfield middle- and high-school students in partnership with agencies across Massachusetts.
• DCR Summer Nights Program is a transformative, statewide initiative that enriches the lives of urban youth ages 13 to 21. MLK Family Services is one of the sites providing safe, inclusive, and fun activities (both recreational and educational) during evening hours. Participants enjoy gaming competitions and tournaments in a variety of sports, enriching arts activities, health and wellness workshops, career explorations through guest speakers, and off-site excursions.
“I can’t wait to jump in with the community and do a strategic plan where they begin to inform us what they need, so we’re not sitting here thinking, ‘oh, I think it would be cool if we created this experience,’” Rudder said. “Does the community need that? We know that the community is ever-shifting and changing. So to really meet the needs of the community, we need to hear from them, and I’m excited about doing that.”
The MLK King’s Kids dance troupe performed at MLK Day this year.
It’s a way to go beyond Johnson’s ‘teach a man to fish’ credo and make sure people are fishing in the right ponds.
“If we say we’re going to listen to the community, then we have to go into the community and say, ‘OK, we heard you. How are we going to work at this together?’” Rudder said. “It’s our job to provide the resources and the tools, but I want them to be a part of that solution, whatever that looks like.”
Thinking Ahead
Rudder has plenty of goals for the center, from broading the trauma-informed piece to launching a full capital-needs assessment.
“I want to make sure our center is there for decades to come, so that means a lot of capital improvement. Our food pantry needs a new home; we’re just bursting at the seams.
“I also want to do economic-development training,” she added. “We do a really good job with HBCUs and also college readiness locally, and I want our kids to dream big — but college might not be for them. So how do we equip them to realize their dreams and potential? I want to do some vocational training, some entrepreneurial things, all STEAM-based approaches to things.”
One idea from Providence Ministries she’d like to being to MLK Family Services is ServSafe training. “We can get them certified in management and actually have hands-on teaching of kitchen skills and culinary skills. And then, how do they make money off of that? So, we’ll teach them business acumen and then link them to opportunities for jobs,” she explained. “I’m just excited to hear what our community’s needs are and finding a way — again, through the public-health lens — of making sure that we meet those needs.”
To accomplish all that, Rudder relies not only on the center’s staff, but also about 120 volunteers. And she finds it gratifying that she’s following King’s philosophy of not working solo, but galvanizing an entire community to accomplish positive change.
“One adage I grew up with is, ‘to whom much is given, much is required.’ And I’m really blessed; I’m really fortunate in my life,” Rudder told BusinessWest. “So that’s my responsibility — to leverage those things that I’ve been blessed with into doing good, into impact. This is fun, and it is fulfilling to me.”
They’ve Made the Mayflower Marathon a Community Tradition
Mike Baxendale, the on-air personality known to all simply as Bax, says it started as a radio promotion. But it quickly became a community event.
And now, it’s a huge community event, involving individuals, families, businesses, institutions, area schools and colleges, and more.
He was referring, of course, to the Mayflower Marathon, staged each year in the days just before Thanksgiving to benefit Open Pantry. For 30 years now, the event, organized by and staged by the staff at Rock 102, has collected food and monetary donations to help those in need.
It started with one Mayflower trailer — hence the name — and each year, with a few rare exceptions, such as the height of the Great Recession in 2009 and the height of COVID in 2020, it has grown bigger and collected more to combat food insecurity.
And in 2023, the marathon, in its relatively new home at MGM Springfield, shattered all previous records, collecting more than $234,000 in food and monetary donations and filling nearly six trucks.
That number, and the level of support needed to reach it, speak to both the growing amount of need in the region amid higher inflation and growing financial issues facing many in the 413 and the manner in which the staff at Rock 102 have collaborated with others in recent years to take the marathon to new levels, with a comedy night at MGM Springfield and a Mayflower Marathon Night on the Springfield Thunderbirds schedule.
“They’re incredible; they truly have such huge hearts to make sure our neighbors get fed. The Open Pantry would never be able to serve that many people without the Mayflower Marathon.”
“Ultimately, the goal is to raise more and more and more to help those in need,” said David Oldread, vice president and general manager of the Springfield Rocks Radio Group and Northampton Radio Group, which includes Rock 102. He noted that the marathon involves difference makers on many levels, including those who donate everything from the trucks to the portable toilets to the tents; those corporate supporters, many of which have been part of this since the beginning; and the volunteers who help collect the donations and load the trucks.
But it is the staff at Rock 102 that is being honored the Difference Makers award this year, and deservedly so. The station conceived the idea back in 1993, and it has been the driving force in continuing the program and orchestrating its strong growth pattern.
The Mayflower Marathon, now staged at MGM Springfield, fills several trucks with donations of food for Open Pantry in Springfield.
And it’s a company-wide initiative, a true team effort, said Oldread, noting that it is “all hands on deck,” especially in the weeks and days leading up to the event, with each staff member making important contributions to the effort, with work starting months before the marathon begins.
Bax and Steve Nagle, morning show hosts, entertain the audience — and inspire it — for 52 hours during the marathon; Erin Buehler, promotions director at Rock 102, plans, organizes, sets up, and executes the event; Alex Byrne, program director, coordinates the entire broadcast; Joshua Smith, engineer, sets up the technical side of the broadcast and keeps the show on the air; Dan Williams and Pat Kelly, on-air hosts, produce the broadcast at the station in East Longmeadow; the sales staff members rally their clients to get donations and volunteer their time at the event … and on it goes.
Overall, the marathon has become a powerful collaboration between Rock 102 staff members and the community to come together for a great cause, said Buehler, adding that this collaboration grows stronger each year.
Nicole Lussier, executive director of Open Pantry, agreed. She’s been with the Springfield-based agency for nearly 30 years, and thus has been involved with the marathon since the beginning. She’s watched it grow and become an increasingly larger force in the agency’s ability to carry out its mission. And she noted that the staff at Rock 102 brings passion to its work of making the marathon happen each year.
“To be able to tell Nicole Lussier what we had just done — and she had been there every minute of the event — to be able to tell her that we had raised at least $217,000, with more on the way … to see her reaction, I can’t speak for anyone else, but I got choked up on the air.”
“They’re incredible; they truly have such huge hearts to make sure our neighbors get fed,” Lussier said. “The Open Pantry would never be able to serve that many people without the Mayflower Marathon; there’s no way we would be able to distribute that much food.”
Such sentiments help explain why the team at Rock 102 is being honored not for putting on the marathon, necessarily, but for rallying a region, a community, around a cause — and, in the process of doing so, becoming a true Difference Maker.
Making Waves
He called it the “chicken wing.”
This was the very effective submission hold developed by former pro wrestler Bob Backlund, who administered it to Bax during one of the marathons a few years ago.
“It’s very painful,” he said with a look that conveyed as much, adding that Backlund is one of many colorful guests who have made appearances during the marathon over the years, and his application of the chicken wing is one of the more intriguing ways that the airtime has been filled.
Others in the guest category include mayors, U.S. Rep. Richard Neal (a regular each year), comedians, New England Patriots wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster (who stopped by last year), and many others. As for memorable moments, there have been plenty of those as well, as the marathon has persevered through all kinds of weather, power outages, equipment glitches … you name it.
Rock 102 morning show hosts Bax (right) and Nagle talk with Springfield Thunderbirds President Nate Costa (a Difference Maker himself in 2023) at last year’s Mayflower Marathon.
But what is remembered far more are other moments in time — the ones that reflect the generosity, caring, and spirit of collaboration that have come to define the marathon and explain why it was conceived all those years ago.
Moments like the announcement of how much was raised last November.
“At the end of the broadcast, we give an unofficial total, with this year [2023] far exceeding anyone’s expectations — I don’t think anyone expected anything close to this,” Bax recalled. “To be able to tell Nicole Lussier what we had just done — and she had been there every minute of the event — to be able to tell her that we had raised at least $217,000, with more on the way … to see her reaction, I can’t speak for anyone else, but I got choked up on the air, and so did Steve. When you realize where this is going and how many people it helps…”
He didn’t finish that sentence, but didn’t really have to. And this sentiment speaks to how and why the marathon was launched three decades ago.
The idea, said all those we spoke with, was to raise some money for Open Pantry, which today operates several different programs, including am emergency food pantry, holiday meals, the Loaves & Fishes Kitchen, a teen-parent program, and many others.
It’s unlikely that anyone at the time could have imagined that it would grow, evolve, and become, as Bax noted, a community event, said Byrne, adding that the marathon has continually broken through new barriers — be it with trucks filled or the total dollar amount raised — that were previously thought impossible.
And every employee at the station, roughly 25 at last count, is involved on some level in making it happen, said Oldread, noting there are many moving parts with this production.
“There’s an awful lot that goes into this,” he said, “from making sure you have power and internet access to getting trucks and RVs and security, and feeding volunteers, and signage and traffic plans. You have to start around Labor Day in order to get things where they need to be in the days before Thanksgiving.”
“We’ve developed our own little tradition with this game, and we want to continue it and expand it. It’s a testament to the work they’re doing at Rock 102 — they’re driving a huge amount of food to the Open Pantry, which lasts almost an entire year.”
The staff, and the marathon, has persevered through recessions, a pandemic, rough weather, and, most recently, the need to find a new home when the Basketball Hall of Fame informed those at the station in 2022 that it could no longer host the marathon in its parking lot.
In many ways, that search for a home crystalized just how much the community had embraced the marathon and wanted to help it live on, said Oldread, noting that, as the station’s on-air personalities went public with the need to find a new home, there was an outpouring of support and commitments to help take the program to a new, much higher level.
Food for Thought
Indeed, Beth Ward, director of Public Affairs for MGM Springfield, said the station received several offers to host the marathon, so many that there was almost a competition for the right to become its new home.
MGM Springfield prevailed, she said, and it has been a privilege to stage the marathon, an event that has become part of the philanthropic culture at the resort casino.
“When we got the call, it was like Christmas morning; we were so excited that we were chosen,” she recalled. “There are so many of us here at MGM that live in Western Mass. and are familiar with this event and have taken part in it and donated to it. Immediately, there were so many people who were thrilled and excited to be there and support it.”
She said MGM Springfield set a record when it comes to volunteer hours donated by employees, and a big reason is the Mayflower Marathon, with many of the casino’s workers on site early (as in 5 a.m. in some cases) to help collect donations and load them into trucks.
“Our employees want to be part of this; they want to help make it successful,” she said, effectively summing up the sentiments of many others we spoke with.
That includes Nate Costa, president of the Springfield Thunderbirds, a Difference Maker himself last year. He told BusinessWest that the team has long had a solid relationship with Rock 102, knowing that its listenership boasts many hockey fans. That relationship was taken to a new level when the event lost its home and then found one with another of the T-Birds’ partners, MGM Springfield.
The team soon dedicated the Wednesday night game before Thanksgiving to the cause, branding it Rock 102 Mayflower Marathon Night. That Wednesday is traditionally a time for family gatherings and “bar gatherings,” as Costa called them, but the pull of the marathon and Open Pantry has brought more than 5,000 fans to the arena the past two years for “one last push” for donations.
“We’ve developed our own little tradition with this game, and we want to continue it and expand it,” he said. “It’s a testament to the work they’re doing at Rock 102 — they’re driving a huge amount of food to the Open Pantry, which lasts almost an entire year.”
Costa, Ward, Lussier, and others credit the staff at Rock 102 — the on-air personalities especially, but everyone that gets involved (and that is everyone) — with bringing a region together behind a cause as few other events in this region have.
“Over the course of the past 30 years, it’s become a full-blown community event, where it almost has nothing to do with Rock 102 or any of us,” Bax said. “It has everything to do with different segments of the community getting involved in something special — collecting food.”
Well … it has something to do with the team at Rock 102. Indeed, they have made this happen, not just when it comes to logistics, but from the standpoint of shaping an event that not only serves a community, but creates a stronger community, Oldread said.
And that’s why the team can collectively share the title of Difference Maker.
