Text and photos by Ron O’Clair

Mayor Petty starts off the meeting

There was a meeting today at Clark University’s Lurie Conference Room in the Higgins Building on the Clark Campus about the Community Development Block Grants given by the government through H.U.D. (Housing and Urban Development) and the success that has been achieved through these grants in the Kilby/Gardner/Hammond section of Worcester.

This meeting was attended by several dignitaries, including:

Dan Donahue, State Representative 16th District

Bill Carpenter, Mayor of the City of Brockton

Setti Warren, Mayor of the City of Newton

Joseph Petty, Mayor of the City of Worcester

Daniel Rizzo, Mayor of the City of Revere

Mary Keefe, State Representative 15th District

Gordon Hargrove, Executive Director of the Friendly House

Robert Shumeyko, H.U.D. Regional Director

Tony Sousa, Director of Planning for the City of Everett

Jeremiah Thompson, from U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren’s office

Laurie Ross, Clark University

and many of the heads of the City of Worcester Community Development office

After opening remarks from Mayor Petty and Mayor Warren, there was a power-point presentation by Steven Teasdale, executive director of the Main South C.D.C., followed by a bus tour of the Worcester neighborhood that was the focus of the redevelopment that the CDBG money helped make a reality.

The WRTA bus getting ready to depart on the tour

The bus, a regular WRTA bus, toured the Kilby Street area, stopping at the new Boys and Girls Club and traveled over to Hollis Street to see the former factory at 93 Grand St. that has been renovated and is nearly ready for occupancy. It was once owned by the Main South C.D.C. but was bought and developed by a private entity.

The people riding the tour bus got to see first-hand the difference made in the area, as was obvious to all from having seen “before” photos of the neighborhood in the power-point presentation .

There was a discussion period after the tour back in the conference room.

We learned much of the progress made in Worcester’s Kilby-Gardner-Hammond area would have been impossible without funding from the CDBG program.