Meeting this Moment: The Boston Foundation 2020 Annual Report
November 19, 2020
Featured Profiles
The report features profiles of these remarkable leaders. Click on their photos on this page to access full transcripts of their interviews with the Foundation.
Rev. Willie Bodrick, II
Sheena Collier
Alexa Cuellar
Iván Espinoza-Madrigal
Sophia Hall
Ben Hires
Lily Huang
Segun Idowu
Imari Paris Jeffries
Clifford Kwong
Christian, Mike and Taheera Massey
Jennifer Mompoint
Patricia Montes
Ameina Mosley
Amy O’Leary
Gloribel Rivas
Jhana Senxian
Yanyi Weng
Interview Transcripts
Each of those we interviewed for the 2020 Annual Report had much more of value to share than could fit on any page. Click through to see the full transcripts (and more photos) of all the featured interviews for this year's report.
Pathways to Leadership
Ben Hires became the new CEO of Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center (BCNC) on June 1, one week after George Floyd was murdered and the Black Lives Matter protests began in earnest. He had volunteered at the Center years earlier, helping students apply to college. Yanyi Weng says she “grew up” at the Center. Today, she is a hospice worker and a mental health counselor—with a focus on serving Asian immigrants.
Ben Hires
Yanyi Weng
In the Public Interest
Iván Espinoza-Madrigal and Sophia Hall are attorneys with Lawyers for Civil Rights, a nonprofit that fights discrimination on behalf of people of color and immigrants through legal action, education and advocacy. Iván is Executive Director and Sophia is Supervising Attorney. Currently, LCR is litigating nearly 50 public interest cases referred to them by their community partners.
Iván Espinoza- Madrigal
Sophia Hall
If We Build the Movement
Lily Huang, holding her daughter, is Co-Executive Director of Massachusetts Jobs with Justice, a coalition of community, faith and labor groups that advocates for the rights of workers. Gloribel Rivas graduated from UMass Boston with a major in history and a minor in English, and serves as a Legislative Aide to Representative Adrian Madaro. Ameina Mosley is on-track to graduate from UMass Boston with a bachelor’s in science and a master’s in global inclusion and social science.
Lily Huang
Ameina Mosley
Gloribel Rivas
Black and Brown People Creating Systems Change
Jhana Senxian launched The Guild in the Bowdoin Geneva and Grove Hall neighborhoods of Dorchester with the belief that Boston’s Black and Brown communities are filled with the talent, strength, beauty and power to create new models of transformation, wholeness and prosperity. It’s a community-driven social enterprise owned and led by people of color. Jennifer Mompoint recently joined the staff of The Guild and considers Jhana to be her mentor. Mike Massey first partnered with The Guild in 2016 as a recipient of a community investment program in healthy food and fitness capacity and network building.
Jhana Senxian
Jennifer Mompoint
The Massey Family
The Change We Need
Imari Paris Jeffries is Executive Director of King Boston; Rev. Willie Bodrick, II is Senior Pastor-Elect at the Historic Twelfth Baptist Church; Sheena Collier is founder of The Collier Connection and Boston While Black; and Segun Idowu is Executive Director of the Black Economic Council of Massachusetts. All of them are devoted to ending systemic racism.
Imari Paris Jeffries
Sheena Collier
Rev. Willie Bodrick, II
Segun Idowu
Immigration as a Global Issue
Patricia Montes is the Executive Director of Centro Presente, a member-driven, statewide Latin American immigrant organization that has been advocating for immigrants from Latin America since the early 1980s. Alexa Cuellar was born in Chelsea to parents who fled El Salvador during the war there. She is a community organizer with Centro Presente and is in her final semester at Regis College.
Patricia Montes
Alexa Cuellar
Families and Children First
Amy O’Leary is director of Early Education for All, a campaign of Strategies for Children. Clifford Kwong is a teacher at Ellis Early Education Center. When Amy first moved to Boston, she taught at Ellis and Clifford was in her very first preschool class there. They reconnected as adults and found that their philosophies about early education—deeply rooted in respect for students—were perfectly aligned.
Amy O'Leary
Clifford Kwong
