Beacon Hill Civic Association Community Corner

Is there a broken gas lamp or gas leak near your home?

Please report any malfunctioning gas lamps with the street address, the nearest intersection, and photo if possible, to [email protected]. We will also note gas leaks if you send us the general area address where you smell gas. We are compiling this data to give to the City for repairs. Please continue to report these issues to 311 and to National Grid as well.

Halloween on the Hill

Because of Covid-19, the BHCA did not close the streets on Halloween as we have done in past years. Instead, we held virtual activities for kids with costumes and story reading, and a happy hour for adults with a spooky video about the Boston Strangler and his ties to Beacon Hill. We were glad that large groups did not come to Beacon Hill this year, but we remain optimistic that next year we will again be able to celebrate Halloween on the Hill in a big way!

2019 Beacon Hill Community Fund Grant Awardee Testimonials

The Beacon Hill Civic Association administers and operates a Beacon Hill Community Fund that gives grants to community-based Beacon Hill, Cambridge Street and adjacent neighborhood non-profit organizations, community development corporations, and other civic groups dedicated to promoting and enhancing quality of life in the community. Last December, the Board of Directors of the BHCA awarded five grants from the Beacon Hill Community Fund to the Old West Church, the Beacon Hill Friends House, the Beacon Hill Artwalk, the Esplanade Association, and the Nichols House Museum.

Their testimonials tell the stories of how these funds were used.

From the Esplanade Association:

​“Funding from the Beacon Hill Community Fund was always a generous and meaningful gift from a valued neighbor, but this spring that funding became even more critically important than usual.

 COVID-19 has affected the Esplanade Association in many of the ways you might expect. Our free public programs in the park were all canceled or made virtual, including guided tours, musical offerings, and exercise classes. Our fundraising was also heavily impacted. And our award-winning Volunteer Program, a significant source of helpful labor in the park and income for EA, scheduled to start in mid-March, was canceled through August.

 …We are delighted that the Community Fund grant means that BHCA members will be joining us for two volunteer days this fall. They will perform important park beautification work, including painting benches, removing litter, and doing some planting, all around the Fanny Appleton Bridge, and their experience will help us determine our approach for the 2021 volunteer season.”

From the Beacon Hill Friends House:

“The Beacon Hill Civic Association Community Fund grant has been a key part in ensuring the success of the Financial Assistance program at Beacon Hill Friends House. This program was started in July 2019 in order to help support current and prospective lower-income Friends House residents. The generous funding from BHCA during the first year of the program has enabled us to provide financial assistance to 7 individuals, ensuring that these residents could make a home in our community without undue financial hardship. The grant has also enabled improvements to the Financial Assistance program itself; we are now able to guarantee some level of assistance for the full tenure of a resident’s time at the Friends House, and have been able to raise both the income threshold to qualify for the program and the amount of funding available to an individual resident.

 Offering reliable financial assistance has helped the Friends House maintain full resident occupancy throughout the Covid-19 pandemic – and we’ve even converted our two overnight guest rooms into housing for additional residents. We are proud to make residency in Beacon Hill affordable to community-minded individuals from a variety of walks of life, and we’re grateful for the support of the Civic Association as a fellow organization working toward greater intentional community on Beacon Hill. We look forward to further strengthening our capacity for financial inclusiveness in the coming years as we continue to deepen both our commitment to diversity and our relationships to others in the Beacon Hill community.”

From the Old West Church:

“In 2019, Old West Church applied for and was granted an award from Beacon Hill Community Fund and what an incredible gift it has been and continues to be. Our application contained an ask to both support our 2020 work with the Monday Night Dinners and the planting out of our food forest. Obviously 2020 has thrown us all for a loop but this grant has been a steady boon for OWC and our initiative to lessen the injustice of food access and instability for our neighbors and our community.

When the impact of COVID19 first started to be felt in the States in March 2020, the Monday Night Dinner team was about to step up and increase their capacity rather than decrease or even shut down. We deemed this aspect of OWC to be truly essential. Thus, the dinner shifted from indoors to out, planted to takeaway. Additionally, we went from just Monday evening dinners to Saturday afternoon lunches as well.

Certainly, this is not the 2020 food justice we were anticipating, however, because of the generosity of the BHCA and their work through the Beacon Hill Community Fund, OWC has been able to ensure that our commitment to food justice not only remains steady but remains possible through their generosity…”

From Jack Burton:

“The Beacon Hill Community Fund has fundamentally and positively changed the way I understand and see our neighborhood. I’ve always been interested in interviews and their power to create meaningful connections with others; so, when I heard about this community fund, it stood out to me as an opportunity to explore my passion.

Hearing about my grant request approval was an exciting moment for me. I felt thrilled that the BHCA had decided to give me the chance to explore and make a difference in our wonderful neighborhood. My mother and I attended the grant acceptance, and, although I was the only person who could not sip wine with the others, I engaged in interesting conversations with new, friendly faces. In a way, the project started at this moment; the Fund already had given me the opportunity to meet and converse with my neighbors with whom I had never spoken.

My project did not require an enormous amount of money to complete–however, the grant was very helpful in raising the quality of my video. I used a decent portion of the funding to hire a videographer and editor for my first few installments. Using my newfound knowledge gained from my experience with the first videos, I plan to purchase some of my own equipment for further interviews.”

From Beacon Hill Art Walk:

“…Thanks to the BHCA and the Community Fund Grant, we have been able to pay our fixed annual expenses (such as website hosting, P.O. Box, etc.), advertise the event on Facebook and Instagram all year long, update our website with the current participating artists’ info, with their own page of photos, bio, links to social media and their websites, and pay our usual PR company to write and distribute the press release and professionally promote our online art sale that utilizes a professional sales platform. This will assist the artists in getting their work publicized and generate sales, and allow our neighbors and fans to see what our artists have been creating during Covid, and also share their artwork with art patrons throughout the world.”

Join the BHCA

If you haven’t yet become a member of the BHCA, we invite you to join. Your input in quality of life issues on the Hill is important to us, and we rely on you our neighbors to bring your comments and concerns to our attention. By joining our membership, you add to the collective voice of the neighborhood and support our work in historic preservation, community development and civic engagement. Please call our office at 617-227-1922 or email the BHCA Executive Director at [email protected] with any questions, comments or concerns, or to become a member. 

Mark your calendar for these BHCA Meetings & Events!

Board of Directors, Monday, November 9th, 7pm via Zoom

Please note that our Holiday Decorating activity will be held virtually on Saturday, December 5th at 6:30pm. Watch your mail for our annual Holiday Fundraising brochure and donate to help spread holiday joy. Stay tuned for more details!

Visit the Beacon Hill Civic Association website www.bhcivic.org or call the office (617-227-1922) for more information on any of these events.

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