The Wanderer created the Keel Award in 1994 and ever since has recognized a dedicated person or team of people in each of the three Tri-Towns whose actions exemplify the spirit of community and volunteerism. Like the keel of the ship that keeps the vessel from sinking, the recipients of the annual Keel Award are recognized for their stalwart efforts in keeping the community on an “even keel.”

            The year 2023 has preoccupied the Tri-Towns with present and potential financial challenges, from massive residential developments ongoing in all three towns to the implications of the state’s efforts to eradicate nitrogen from the harbors and require residents in “nitrogen-sensitive areas” to pay tens of thousands of dollars to upgrade their septic systems.

            It’s against that backdrop quiet citizens in Marion, Mattapoisett and Rochester have been nominated for this recognition. They are being honored for their many small deeds that added up, rival the impact of the headline-grabbing news.

            We are proud to present to you the 2023 Wanderer Keel Award winners: Hannah Moore (Marion), Jennifer Rusinoski (Mattapoisett) and Mike Cambra (Rochester.)

   

         Thirty years ago when Hannah Moore came back to Sippican Elementary School, the school’s marching band was playing what she thought of as a dirge: “Brrump, brrump, brrump, bump, bump.” She knew they were capable of more and remembered an important childhood experience.

            “When I was a little girl, there was a wonderful music teacher, Jarvis Medeiros. He gave me a wonderful start, he was a lovely, lovely man.” Recalling the music Medeiros taught, Moore challenged the children. “The street beats I teach the kids are the ones Jarvis Medeiros wrote. They’re full cadences, four-bar ideas,” Moore said. “I figure, if I could remember them, they’ve got to be good.”

            Working mainly with Patty Richard, Sippican’s general music teacher (chorus, music literacy), Moore teaches instrumental music, “all day, every day.” She estimates 95% of Sippican students are in her program.

            Musical literacy is a gift that will last a lifetime, the ability to parse out sounds and deconstruct a song so that it can be played on an instrument. That training starts early at Sippican, and it’s the difference between someone who later in life can only admire and enjoy music and those who can participate.

            Working together with general music teacher Patty Richard, Moore has been able for 30 years to continuously live her dream of teaching children how to understand music.

            “What we’re passionate about is musical literacy … from the time they are kindergartners. … Patty is working to instill basic music skills,” said Moore. “We really, really hope that kids, from their time with us, they have all these literacy skills, so they can reproduce that (song in their heads.)”

            The music starts early at Sippican, where Richard and Moore begin every morning at 7:30. Jazz bands, for example, practice at 8:00 am. “It’s proven over and over again,” said Moore, “kids that do music before school will do better in their day. We know we benefit their academic life by having those kids in the school before the workday. … It’s not a surprise if they get really good at it.”

            When the school’s band leads or is anywhere in a community parade, a regular occurrence in Marion, it begins with that four-bar beat. “The kids are in charge,” said Moore. “The drummers are the ones that understand … they’re the battery, the engine in the middle of 180 kids, they’re the show.”

            Without a comfort zone in public performance as a young person, Moore changed her own career pursuits from music to biology and pre-med. It was during her last year in college in a hospital where she realized she belonged in music and pursued teaching.

            Early experiences at the Kent School in Connecticut, where she taught biology and chemistry, and Phillips Academy in Andover), where she became a full-time music teacher, confirmed her career path. “I really love kids, and I love being a positive support place for our kids to be. And it’s difficult for a lot of kids,” she said. “I’m a teacher first.”

            A Marion native, Moore has also taught sailing and returned to town upon the passing of her father. Starting at Sippican Elementary where she had attended made her nervous and excited.

            “It’s a whole different skill set,” she said, thankful for Sippican’s system that doesn’t pull students out of classes for a music lesson resulting in a need to make up classwork. Rather, the school operates with flex-blocks during lunch or recess. “You have to have access if you want your program to survive.”

Citing that most families lack a structure at home for children to practice music, Moore is ever cognizant of what is provided at school.

            “We’re working really hard at this. We have fun,” she said. “Newsflash: Teachers actually know a pile of stuff, we have 60-gazillion tricks to make things work. There’s a different way that they’re all going to key into it. Some kids are good listeners, some kids are good decoders, some kids are binary. Every kid can key into that somewhere. I’ve never found a kid you can’t teach music to … that’s why you have teachers. They need to be valued.”

            Along with music, Moore is passionate about the Community Garden she started at Sippican. Not to be confused with the Memorial Garden out front, the Community Garden is a place to teach gardening skills.

            Her mother having been a cofounder along with Kim Briggs, Moore has also served on the Sippican Lands Trust. She remains passionately involved in the community boating center in New Bedford and the SouthCoast Community Foundation, a nonprofit which allocates individual, family and corporate funds to meet community needs.

            Multiple posthumous nominations of Jennifer Rusinoski, or Jenny as she is lovingly remembered by those who knew her, comes in the wake of her recent passing.

            Jenny will be most widely remembered for what Sue Powers’ nomination described as “her selfless dedication to the Mattapoisett Public Schools Senior Citizen Spring Basket delivery program that she initiated and coordinated for many years.”

            Her impact of kindness to the community was a way of life. As an example, she painted children’s faces and helped them make crafts at the annual Harbor Days festival.

            “Jennifer Rusinoski was a very generous, caring person. Her community service was focused on the senior citizens in Mattapoisett, especially anyone who was homebound,” said former Mattapoisett Schools Principal Rose Bowman, noting that Rusinoski spent approximately 15 years working behind the scenes to teach students to care for senior citizens, “because our schools would not run without all generations supporting them.”

            Jenny began the project while volunteering with the Mattapoisett PTA and while working the voting polls in the late 1990s. The Mattapoisett school district desperately needed a Proposition 2½ override to avoid serious cuts in the school budget. Having noticed that a majority of voters were senior citizens, Jenny feared that the tax increase would fail. Generous support made the override pass, and Jenny developed her plan for students and families to respond to that support.

            While the gift basket project began in the mid-1990s, it would evolve after that vote into a longstanding tradition of connecting students and senior citizens. Senior citizens were shown appreciation for their support of the schools, and the students learned citizenship in the process.

            According to a detailed nomination submitted by Maureen McQuillan, Miranda Pierson and other community members, Jenny developed a theme for the year and detailed it with dates and timelines. The Council on Aging assisted with contacts for seniors, and the PTA helped give the project its budget, assisting with the procurement of vendors and value in needed supplies to create as many baskets as possible. School administrators and teachers helped manage the student end of the effort, as Jenny wanted them to gain the experience of doing something nice for someone they didn’t know.

            “This was her way of saying thank you to the senior citizens,” said Bowman.

            The project took shape with Grades 4-6 at Old Hammondtown School. Students learned valuable skills as they participated. Grade 4 wrote letters to senior citizens, Grade 5 carefully crafted a variety of gift items and Grade 6 learned how to bake as they produced treats for each gift basket. Parents volunteered for delivery to nearly 150 seniors each year.

            In her final year of the project, Jenny expanded the program to include students in Pre-K through third grade at Center School. While she passed the labor-intensive batons to other volunteers, Jenny continued to offer guidance.

            “In my heart, I always felt she took an ordinary day and made it into an extraordinary day through her kindness and love,” said Bowman, calling her an outstanding recipient “because who Jenny was, she was every day of her life. She never changed. She was extremely supportive of everyone she worked with, and of course, she loved her family unconditionally.

            “She is the perfect person to be recognized. She never asked for anything, Jenny was a giver.”

            Having spent his career involved in teaching and philanthropic efforts when he wasn’t in education, Mike Cambra keeps on caring, and he says it does himself as much good as it does those around him.

            Having called the 10 years (1974-84) he spent teaching at Rochester Memorial School “the best job I ever had,” it’s only natural that Cambra seeks opportunities to connect to people and offer what he can.

            These days that place is the Rochester Senior Center on Dexter Lane. Stop in between 7:00 am and 9:30 am for breakfast, and Mike could very well be the person pouring your coffee.

            “People wonder why you volunteer, there’s an intrinsic value to that,” he said. “I get up in the morning, and I’m determined to make it a good day. I come here, and it’s a good day.”

            Cambra’s volunteerism with the Rochester Council on Aging (and the Friends of the Rochester Senior Center where he currently serves as president) includes nine years of membership on the Board of Directors and three of those years as its president.

            Cambra took it upon himself to clean and organize the Senior Center kitchen and organize the sheds on the property. He also helps make pickups at the Boston Food Bank and distribute food to Rochester residents.

            “The biggest change during my tenure on the board was hiring the director, Eric (Poulin.) That was one of the best decisions we ever made because he’s a great director,” said Cambra, highlighting Poulin’s work procuring grant funding and his ability to connect with Senator Michael Rodrigues and Representative Bill Straus. “We’re very grateful for that.”

            Prior to Poulin’s hire in Rochester, Cambra served five years on the board for New Bedford-based Coastline Elderly Services.

            After teaching and also serving Rochester as a selectman from 1984 to 1990, Cambra and his wife Annie, the 2016 Rochester Keel Award recipient, bought a shipping company that they would sell in 2008 and retire.

            They became involved after former RMS Principal Jack Cummings had bought the company, hired Annie, as he was seeking a successor in his own retirement. Learning from Annie from her head start in the business, Cambra kept learning.

            “A whole different nomenclature,” he described. “The office was in Holbrook, she’s teaching me the terms, at night we’re talking – she was my mentor. I knew nothing about it, really.

            “Ann and I, even while we owned a business, we started a nonprofit to do work in Africa, (for) 13 years we did work in Liberia. I was fortunate enough to go over there. … You hear people say this is turning into a third-world country, they have no idea what a third world country’s like. We have it very fortunate here.”

            With time on their hands upon retirement from the shipping-container business, the Cambras learned that the Rochester COA serves lunch, a soup and sandwich, that sort of thing.

            They got involved.

            “We really do love it here, we enjoy all the people. It’s a team effort, it really is. Even the people coming for breakfast, (if) we get overloaded, people jump right up,” said Cambra, noting that people are missed when they are absent. They and others at the COA will check on those people. “It makes everybody feel wanted and connected.”

            Next on the calendar is a scallop dinner scheduled for Thursday, September 21, at 5:30 pm.

            “We cook all the time, we love to cook,” said Cambra, quick to note that 2022 Rochester Keel Award recipients Sheila and Mike Daniel cook many meals. “We have themed meals, we get dressed up, our director gets entertainment for the occasions. People really enjoy it.”

By Mick Colageo