First of all, I want to thank everyone who sent prayers and words of comfort during my wife, Pat’s recent hospitalization in the ICU at Mass General. She has made remarkable progress and she is now at the Spaulding Rehab in Cambridge where she is about to begin her rigorous exercising plan. These past few weeks have been quite draining not only because of my wife’s health scare, but one of the worst things about being a “pack-rat” is one that is moving.
Let’s face it, no one wants to spend three weeks of their vacation organizing and filling up boxes, but that’s just what I did, as we slowly moved our valued possessions from a rented house on Waitts Mount to a brand new apartment at the Quarrystone, the new development built in the old Rowe’s Quarry on the Malden/Revere line. I found out much to my chagrin that who I am is: 18 pieces of furniture you pay someone to move, 21 pieces of small furniture, you’re convinced you can move yourself, 76 boxes of accumulated belongings and 18 trash bags full of way too many pieces of clothing.
Pat had made me three piles. She said the first pile was stuff she had gone through and wanted me to decide what I wanted to keep. The second pile was stuff we were donating to charity and the third pile was stuff we were throwing out. Of course, my first reaction was to I ask her, “Where was my pile?”
The goal was to use the third week of my vacation to sit by the pool and relax. But unfortunately, that’s when my wife got sick and had her cardiac arrest. I can only thank God, we were at MGH when it happened and I am so grateful for the amazing work they did to not only bring her back to me but do it with her completely intact. They actually froze her on purpose to minimize any damage that might have occurred during the aspiration. It worked and in a week she was out of intensive care and into the RAC unit where she was prepped for the move to rehab that just happened a few days ago. I am very thankful to all the dedicated doctors and nurses at Mass General and for a second time, they have saved my dear wife and friend.
But while all this was going on, special things were still happening at and around MATV, Malden’s Media Center. We are thrilled to announce that thanks to our Assistant Director, Anne D’Urso Rose and her efforts, we will receive another $7,500 from the Adelaide Breed Bayrd Foundation. We are also pleased to let everyone know that MATV was able to award the first recipients of the “Dana Rosenblatt Scholarship Fund” a few weeks ago. Two checks in the amount of $750 each were given out to Malden High School graduate, Sam Warton and Malden Catholic Senior, Gus Ramos. The scholarship is awarded to students who have shown excellence in academics, with a strong emphasis in sports and community service and is given out in the name of local legend, Dana Rosenblatt, the former Malden resident and middleweight boxing champion. Congratulations to both students.
The other major announcement was the posting of the award winners in the 2010 ACM Hometown Video Festival competition. MATV is proud to announce that we received wins in four categories. The “We Have a Dream” project that was produced in 2009 with over 150 members of the Malden community participating won in the “Community Impact” category. The production, “Malden Superstars” that was produced last summer by the members of the Kids Video Adventure Workshop won in the category of “Best Educational Project K-12” and the short video project, “Joe” that was written, produced by and starred Leo Cardarelli from the KVA that same summer won two categories, “Best Entertainment Variety” and “Best Children’s Program”. I will be joining staff members, Hailey Hao, Anna Pacheco, and Dee Jaye Tobin in going to the award ceremony in Pittsburgh this July to pick up the awards.
And finally, I wanted to thank the Executive Director of the Malden Chamber of Commerce, Ted Coates who along with a great committee did a fantastic job in putting together the annual “Shining Stars Award Dinner”. I was asked to co-host at the last minute and I’m grateful for the opportunity because it came at a very tense time during my wife’s illness. At the time, my wife was still in a coma and for a few hours, I was able to focus on something else and had a wonderful time sharing some jokes and one liners with fellow host, Jordan Shapiro. I was delighted to have nominated Alisa Carbone from Triangle, Inc and the Executive Producer of Ablevision, who was awarded the “Community Service” award.
In my first year on the Board of Directors of the Chamber of Commerce, I have made a commitment to serve this community in a new capacity beyond my role as leader of MATV. I believe an engaged chamber makes a strong community and I plan on doing what I can to make this chamber meet the needs of this wonderful city. I produced a short video for the evening that had all the honorees talking about what a Chamber of Commerce really is. It was about 12 minutes and gave some insight to how various people viewed the roll of the chamber in our community. It also showed a collection of videos from many of the events that the chamber has had over the years from the Business Expos, wine tastings, the breakfast speaker series as well as the incredible Taste of Malden event. It was well received by the audience and I look forward to producing more videos that showcase what the Malden Chamber of Commerce is all about.
I am grateful to be working in this wonderful city and I am honored to be a part of its growth and development as a community that is rich in diversity and blessed with a responsive citizenry who want to be involved and make a better society.
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