A message from our CEO Ruth Zakarin as the Massachusetts school year begins

September 6, 2024 - On Labor Day, a young man was shot and killed and another wounded while at a barbershop in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston. This shooting happened in the middle of the day, and the traumatic impact on the Dorchester community cannot be overstated.

On Wednesday evening, faith leaders, community members, and activists gathered in Dorchester for a peace walk, visiting sites around the neighborhood for communal prayer and reflection. As I walked with others in attendance, we talked about the shooting, solutions, pain, and what safety looks like. We also talked about the news from Georgia, as the walk happened just hours after a 14-year-old shot and killed two fellow students and two teachers at Apalachee High School. Many people brought up that the school year was starting the next morning for students in Boston and other districts around Massachusetts. We wondered what it was going to be like for our children to return to school in the immediate aftermath of yet another horrific school shooting.

For the children of Dorchester - and for their families too - there is great weight to how this all comes together. If young people have to worry about the danger of going to a barbershop for a midday back-to-school haircut, and they also have to return to school under the ever-present threat of school shootings, what does safety look like for them? And what do we adults need to do to care for them in the midst of all this trauma?I believe that a part of how we care for our youth is to come together in community and demand change at the local, state, and national level. And it’s also in how we show up for them, create space for them to process how all of this violence impacts them. I worry that all of our children carry a constant fear of whether their school will be next - as do their families.

As school begins in communities across the Commonwealth, may this be a year of peace for our kids - in their schools and in their neighborhoods. And may we all continue to come together to make that a reality.