Annual Celebration – Page 4 – WalkMassachusetts

Recording of WalkBoston’s 30th Annual Celebration & Golden Shoe Awards (September 23, 2020)

By WalkMassachusetts | September 24, 2020

Recording of WalkBoston’s 30th Annual Celebration & Golden Shoe Awards, held on Zoom on September 23, 2020. (Inspired? You can still give and be a part of the event’s fundraising effort!)

Agenda/Timeline:

Introduction/Welcome – Emma Yashar, Board President
Year (and a half) in Review – Stacey Beuttell, Executive Director
Project Highlights / “One Minute, One Slide” [all staff, pre-recorded video]
Corporate/Foundation Thank You – Brendan Kearney, Deputy Director
Fund-A-Need – Matt Lawlor, Board Secretary
Presentation of Golden Shoe Awards – Stacey Beuttell
- Boston Public Library – David Leonard, President
- Coalition for a Better Acre/Lowell Walking Champions – Billy Heath
- Age Friendly Walking / Tufts Health Plan Foundation – Nora Moreno Cargie
- Age Friendly Walking / Boston Age Strong Commission – Emily Shea
Keynote Introduction – Stacey Beuttell
Video Introduction – Dorothea Hass & Ann Hershfang [pre-recorded video]
Keynote Speaker – Mark Fenton, a nationally recognized public health, planning, and transportation consultant, an advocate for active transportation, and former host of the “America’s Walking” series on PBS television.
Question & Answer – Mark Fenton & Stacey Beuttell

Thank you for all your support over the years!

One Minute, One Slide: Althea Wong-Achorn Intro & Beat the Bay State Challenge

By WalkMassachusetts | September 24, 2020

Below is a “One Minute, One Slide” presentation shared by a member of the WalkBoston staff.
Text provided is as prepared for this year’s annual event on September 23, 2020 on Zoom.

Althea Wong-Achorn

Hello, my name is Althea Wong-Achorn, and I am the new Development Director here at WalkBoston. Seeing as we can’t get together in person I want to take a quick moment to introduce myself. Before WalkBoston, I worked at the USS Constitution Museum, where last year I led the Museum’s most successful gala. It raised over $670,000, which was $300,000 more than they had ever raised before. Before that I spent 7 years at the Boston Children’s Museum where I created their Destination Events program to increase community involvement with events such as the Boston Mini Maker Faire.

On a personal note, I am a Classics nerd and bookworm, I always wanted to be Kristi Yamaguchi, I am addicted to tea and completely obsessed with my dog. I am also extremely excited to join this wonderful team and I can’t wait for some of the great programming we have coming up, like our Beat the Bay State Challenge. We’re asking you to sign up to walk or run around the commonwealth with us for the month of November, to help us raise funds and awareness about the work that we do. We also have sponsorship opportunities and fun swag. So check out our event website at WalkBoston.org/Baystate and if you have any questions about the challenge, fundraising, or anything development, just ask me! Thank you!

One Minute, One Slide: WalkMA & Framingham Youth Walking Advocates

By WalkMassachusetts | September 24, 2020

Below is a “One Minute, One Slide” presentation shared by a member of the WalkBoston staff.
Text provided is as prepared for this year’s annual event on September 23, 2020 on Zoom.

LeighAnne Taylor

I’m LeighAnne Taylor, Program Manager at WalkBoston.

The WalkMassachusetts Network is a statewide network of multi-sectoral groups working on walking across the Commonwealth. In February, WalkBoston staff and members of the WalkMassachusetts Network convened for our second Network-wide forum in Framingham to provide opportunity for members to connect and share best practices. During the half-day forum, members shared their local wins for walkability and participated in “advocacy clinics,” aimed to strengthen their walking efforts. We are excited to build on the momentum of this forum and are planning for WalkMassachusetts Network virtual events. Join the network and stay tuned.

The second project I’ll highlight is WalkBoston’s Youth Working Towards Walkable Streets initiative with the MetroWest Boys and Girls Club in Framingham. With funding from the MetroWest Health Foundation, we are working with an enthusiastic group of 6-8th graders to teach them about the elements of walkable communities and to help them build skills to advocate for community change. In January, we kicked this work off with a series of practice-based learning sessions. We look forward to picking this work back up in 2021 and are excited to support these youth leaders in making changes to the built environment and local policies to support safer, more enjoyable walking in Framingham.

One Minute, One Slide: Age-Friendly Walking in Boston and Beyond

By WalkMassachusetts | September 24, 2020

Below is a “One Minute, One Slide” presentation shared by a member of the WalkBoston staff.
Text provided is as prepared for this year’s annual event on September 23, 2020 on Zoom.

Wendy Landman

Aging in your own community is what almost everybody says they want to do. Massachusetts is working to live up to it’s declaration as an age friendly state and WalkBoston is in the thick of things with our age-friendly walking efforts across the state. Almost exactly a year ago today with the mayor and many local residents we were celebrating new benches in Grove Hall as part of Boston’s new WalkBoston-inspired bench program. Research has shown us that plenty of benches are a key ingredient of keeping older adults walking.

We could not have imagined that today our work would have transitioned to zoom and helping communities figure out the best ways to keep seniors active during COVID-19. That could mean creating pop-up connections between senior housing and nearby parks and shopping. Or carrying out walk audits remotely or with video conversations about individual walks.

We are also thinking about the future and have developed a list of our top 8 municipal infrastructure and policy recommendations for age-friendly walking. People from Egremont to Quincy, from Salem to Worcester and Barnstable want to keep on walking as they age in their communities – and WalkBoston is there as a partner for the long term.

One Minute, One Slide: Walking & Communicating in the time of COVID

By WalkMassachusetts | September 24, 2020

Below is a “One Minute, One Slide” presentation shared by a member of the WalkBoston staff.
Text provided is as prepared for this year’s annual event on September 23, 2020 on Zoom.

*Can’t read the text on these screenshots? Click here or on the image to access the archived Mailchimp message.*

Brendan Kearney

I’m Brendan Kearney, WalkBoston’s deputy director.

March 18th, we launched a weekly storytelling email effort that we called “Keep Walking”

It started as a way to share positive news as we collectively grappled with the unfamiliarity of life in quarantine. It quickly became more than that though, and we now know that a limited run email series is a way that we can delve deeper into a topic area related to walking.

It gave us a chance to pause and formulate what has been important to us each week: from exploring new rail trails (Issue 3), to rediscovering neighborhood walking maps (Issue 4); from learning about the animals that coexist on the streets around us (Issue 6), to the blooms of flowers along streets and a resurgence of gardens and CSAs (Issues 8 and 9); from sharing streets for physical distancing (Issue 11), to walking to support main street businesses (Issue 14).

As Stacey spoke about earlier, Keep Walking also became the space where we committed to being better advocates and working to end the structural racism that perpetuates violence against Black people (in Issue 12). We have always believed that safe walking is a fundamental right, but it is not one that we all share equally: a “safe street” does not mean the same thing for every person (Issue 13).

We are grateful to everyone that reached out and shared your stories, too: including the way walking has become a critical release valve.

To read any of these issues, head to walkboston.org/keepwalking