Last year, The Courant set out to honor unsung heroes in our communities by telling the stories of those who make a difference every day — teachers, coaches, nurses and others. The response was so overwhelming we've renewed the series for 2016. Once again we're enlisting your help in finding these...More
MERIDEN — Luke Williams remembers how years ago his mentor Tony McQuiller urged him to get involved as a shy high school student. "You couldn't pay me to talk in front of people," Williams said. Now, Williams is an ESPN producer and works with students through Nutmeg Big Brothers Big Sisters. He...
MANCHESTER — Ryan Parker describes himself as "super-hyped." The Illing Middle School teacher is a poet and hip-hop scholar, a live wire with bursts of hair beneath a signature bandanna. Parker can recite long passages from Shakespeare and Mos Def. He's a Bob Marley fan, peace advocate, slam poetry...
HARTFORD — When Karen Theroux answered an ad in The Courant seeking staff for a YMCA program, she was looking for a part-time job, nothing more. The former elementary school teacher had no idea that the tiny square of newsprint would open the door to an 18-year tenure in a field she now describes...
HARTFORD — Heather Grance Sanders, who had experience running programs for children and adults at museums, had recently moved to Connecticut and needed a job when she saw a listing for teachers at the Right Place preschool. Meanwhile, Heather LaCasse, executive director of the school-readiness...
They say laughter is the best medicine, but Dr. Jim Rosokoff is just as apt to prescribe a dose of four-stringed strumming and singing. That's why the retired dermatologist from Glastonbury proudly wears the title of "Dr. Uke." A lifelong singer and guitarist, Rosokoff, 70, is founder and leader...
CANTON — When the opportunity to help run the annual student musical at Canton Middle School came to her, Kelly Casorio saw a fun outlet and another opportunity to help create a more inclusive atmosphere at the school. Casorio is a special education teacher at the middle school, where she has taught...
Years before he would volunteer at Nutmeg Big Brothers Big Sisters, Chris Fernald had thought about becoming a mentor to someone who needed him. "I kind of logged it in my brain somewhere that it would be a good thing to do one day when I was out of college, had a job and kind of established myself,"...
WEST HAVEN — Water temperature 40 degrees, air temperature about the same; wind 15 knots out of the southeast. Great day for a swim? The crowd cheered and rang cowbells as some 200 people plunged into the icy waters at Savin Rock Beach on March 6.. The costumes of these bold swimmers were extravagant...
When Tamera Green learned her daughter was using heroin she kept it to herself. A South Windsor resident of 15 years, Green said she didn't know how to process her daughter's addiction, let alone how to talk about it with others. "I struggled with knowing my oldest daughter was addicted to heroin...
SIMSBURY -- Colleen Langlais says that, among her family and friends, she's known the most for one thing: fundraising. "It's become sort of my 'thing,'" Langlais said with a laugh. Whether it's at her full-time job in oncology pharmaceutical sales, or in her free time as a volunteer for the Leukemia...
As a registered dietitian working at Hartford's Mount Sinai Hospital 40 years ago, Joan Dauber saw firsthand the effects of inadequate nutrition, especially among the poor. A lack of knowledge and not enough money to buy healthy foods condemned many, then as now, to illnesses associated with a...
At first, Arleen Crespo was making the changes she needed for her health on her own. Troubled by how heavy she'd become — she was 5-foot-5 and 230 pounds — she stopped drinking 20-ounce sodas at every meal and joined a gym, where she was taking Zumba classes. That's how she lost 10 to 15 pounds....
EAST HARTFORD — Once in a blue moon, Marie Beaulier feels a little sorry for herself, and it's usually because her movements are dictated by the Dial-A-Ride bus schedule. But it doesn't last long. "I say 'Wait a minute that's the pity train, get the heck out of here,'" Beaulier said as she sat...
HARTFORD — Dr. Harold "Hank" Schwartz takes time from his busy schedule as psychiatrist-in-chief for the Institute of Living to walk across campus to get lunch at the cafeteria. Schwartz came into prominence with the governor's commission on the Sandy Hook school shootings in December 2012. His...
TORRINGTON — Elena Sileo is described by her students as someone who goes out of her way to do the right thing, a superhero. For one former student in particular, Sileo is a second mom. Biende Berroa said he barely spoke English when he moved to Connecticut from the Dominican Republic at age 10....
BRISTOL — On a typical morning's rounds, Gerald Blanchette logs about 3.3 miles and gathers several bags' worth of debris. Wearing a reflective safety vest, Blanchette strides up and down Memorial Boulevard and a few nearby blocks, gathering the previous day's accumulation of discarded cigarette...
HARTFORD — When Lou Basta was a technical computer programmer, one of his biggest frustrations was not meeting "the end customer." "Sometimes, I'd ask myself, 'Is what I'm doing important?'" he said as he stood in what will soon be the bathroom of a home in Hartford's North End. Now, as he marks...
SOUTH WINDSOR — Elsie Woolam will celebrate her 80th birthday in August, but she shows no signs of slowing down when it comes to giving back to the community where she's lived all her life. A South Windsor resident, Woolam delivers Meals on Wheels in town once a month, drives for Friends In Service...
WOODSTOCK — A day after Woodstock volunteer firefighter Nick Webster rushed to his dying father, he raced to an eastern Connecticut lake where he rescued a man and his son struggling to stay afloat after a boating accident. Webster, 31, who is now a lieutenant in the Bungay Fire Brigade, headed...
WEST HARTFORD — Millie Chase deems herself a true New Yorker. Raised in the Bronx, the 90-year-old said she doesn't insult anybody and doesn't yell at anybody, but she makes a lot of noise, especially where she lives at the Hoffman SummerWood Community. At 5 feet tall — she gleefully calls herself...
WILLIMANTIC — Like many DJs, Mike Merlin still has a bit of the class clown in him, even at 43. Earlier this month, as he was promoting a contest on WILI-98.3 to win a Italian bead necklace donated by a local jeweler, he told listeners, "That would be awesome! I'll tell you how to win it next." He...
At a technical university of Berlin, Polish-born Monika Weber was the only woman in her electrical engineering class. Today, the Yale Ph.D. candidate is blazing a trail in bioelectronics with a product she thinks can change the world. Weber is the founder of Yale University-startup called Fluid-Screen,...
FRESH Farm Aquaponics, of Glastonbury, was born start several years ago with a college student on a bus, holding a 20-gallon fish tank filled with black sand, fish food, a few air and water pumps and a trio of platy fish darting around in a water-filled bag. With those ingredients, Spencer Curry...
HARTFORD — The idea started on a lunch break at Dave Benoit's law firm. The conversation turned somber when a colleague mentioned his ties to the Petit family, three of whom died in a brutal home invasion in Cheshire five years earlier, in 2007. "We came together and said, 'It's like the clocks...
Never in her wildest dreams did Yale University's Lynn Fiellin think at the start of her medical career that she'd end up working to create a new wave of interactive video games to help teenagers avoid HIV infections, drug abuse and smoking. "I'm not a gamer at all," Fiellin said with a laugh in...
When Ellen Su started at Yale, she planned to major in art and study painting, but got interested in design and sculpture. She supplemented her studies with courses in mechanical engineering and ended up with a degree in art focused on product design. "I think recently there's been a big resurgence...
Some heroes are forged in an instant; for others it takes a lifetime. Dr. Pramod Srivastava, 60, has devoted his life's work to understanding and trying to unlock the mysteries of the human immune system, which he believes holds a cure for cancer. Srivastava, scientist, physician, immunologist,...
SOUTHINGTON - Carl Venditto's last job title was "principal" before he retired from the Southington public school system. Since 2000 he's been an "ambassador" — a title he had held for 15 years since the retired U.S. Marine reserve colonel was appointed as one of the two Army Reserve Ambassadors...
For the last four years, Annalee Hughes and her family have spent most weekends hauling cans and bottles to the grocery store and donating the deposit money to disabled veterans. And she's done it all from the seat of her wheelchair. Hughes, a 16-year-old junior at Tolland High School, was born...
Veterans Day in Middletown used to be a day or two of events and modest ceremonies, but this year the demand to have local veterans appear at area schools and organizations very nearly turned the day into Veterans Month. In the last few years the veterans have made a clear effort to interact with...
Suzanne Manafort's work with veterans began with words on a page. Seven or eight years ago, the yoga instructor read a local newspaper article on how yoga helped veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. She decided to do her bit and began giving free classes at the Newington Veterans Administration...
If you need to know what's going on, what's available to veterans and who in Enfield has served in the armed forces, you go to Lori Gates, her "Enfield Hooah" Facebook page or website. When Gates and her husband moved to Enfield 10 years ago, she thought she would use the website to network, get...
Bernard "Bernie" Corona does not like to talk about himself. But Corona agreed to an interview, hoping that sharing his experiences might spur others to help veterans. That attitude — doing whatever it takes to help others — is what keeps Corona, 85, volunteering as a veterans' advocate and driver...
There was great disappointment in Catherine Lamont's home the day her daughter, Elizabeth, became too ill to attend her eighth-grade commencement and give the class graduation speech. But that changed with a knock on their door. On her way home from the graduation ceremony, Sister Maureen Fitzgerald,...
MANCHESTER — Before the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Diana Hossain "lived a really quiet life as a Muslim." "Up till then, I could practice my faith, take the kids to the mosque. We had social gatherings, we had prayers," Hossain said. "All of a sudden, 'Muslim' was brought to the forefront,"...
At 33, Debbie Sousa thought she nearly had it all — a lovely home in Bristol, a rewarding career as a physical therapist and family and friends to help her mark life's milestones. But she knew something was missing. "I was fine, I had everything I needed but I felt like I was alone out there doing...
SUFFIELD — The Rev. Tom Carr is dedicated to God, the environment and others. "In 1986, I was in Dayton, Ohio, and I had this epiphany while watching 'NBC Nightly News,'" Carr said. "Back in the mid-'80s it was the garbage barge. It was on the news one night and then the next. I hadn't had much...
When Robin Kirsche first started her practice, there were no yoga mats. Yoga clothes and yoga studios didn't exist, either. All there was in 1974 was a house, a blanket and a wooden floor. "People weren't doing yoga, when I started, to get in shape," said Kirsche, a Farmington resident and yoga...
Earlier this month, Deacon Art Miller got himself arrested. He knelt down in the intersection of Bloomfield and Albany avenues in Hartford, one of about a dozen protesters purposefully breaking the law by blocking traffic as part of an effort to raise awareness that "black lives matter." It wasn't...
They used to be called firemen, then firefighters and now first-responders. But whatever their names, it takes a special kind of person to run toward danger. Whatever you call them, Fire Battalion Chief Salvatore D'Aquila is one of them. "Sal is one of those throwback heroes," said retired Middletown...
Hartford Police Lt. Robert Allan leaned over the side of the Bulkeley Bridge to see the man who had just jumped into the partially frozen Connecticut River. About 65 feet down, the man was alive, part of him above the weakening ice, part below. Allan called for help on his portable radio, launching...
Emergency medical services Capt. Erin Maloney is a hero determined to create more heroes. Maloney, 30, has done what few before her tried to do — she made sure Enfield was listed as one of the state's 130 HEARTSafe communities, meaning that a certain percentage of the population is trained to help...
MIDDLETOWN — Firefighting can be a perilous job. Men and women in the fire service plunge into freezing rivers, race toward explosions and search for people in smoke-filled burning buildings. Yet despite the visible dangers that they face, often on a daily basis, more than half of the firefighters...
ASHFORD — When you are airlifted to a hospital at the age of 5, it makes an impression. "Ryan was Code Blue when he got to the hospital," says his mother, Tracy Will. "They had to resuscitate him." For years afterward, just the sound of a helicopter frightened him, she says. But Ryan was determined...
Quick action by two staff members at Canton High School last fall helped save the life of a student and earned them accolades in the community from the American Red Cross. Looking back recently at the incident — which occurred exactly a year ago while students ate lunch in the school cafeteria...
— There are 393 comments on Ally Del Monte's blog post "A Princess at Any Size" on the Huffington Post. Her readers have a lot to say. "You are so strong and I believe that you will inspire others to be brave as well," one fan gushes on Ally's personal blog, Losergurl.com. "Moved to tears, you...
During Connecticut's historically harsh winters, when most residents are snug inside their heated homes, it's easy to forget that not everyone is comfortable. "My family and I always struggled with paying the bill for oil when I was little," said Anna Murphy, 13, of Stafford Springs. "I didn't...
WEST HARTFORD — A sum in the thousands is an impressively high profit for a lemonade stand, but it's hardly what most distinguishes 14-year-old David Newman's annual house-front sale. More interesting is David's reasoning. He is not saving up for a bike. He is not supplementing his allowance (he...
There were those days not long ago that 18-year-old Kyla Pokorny felt like she was going to die. There were also those days when, if anyone had asked, she might have said she wanted to die. Such powerful feelings are foreign to most people her age, unless they happen to be enduring chemo and radiation...
For 9-year-old Anna Wilcox, cleaning up the park down the road from her home had an easy solution: putting on gloves and going each Wednesday with her family to pick up litter. Wilcox, soon to be a fourth-grader at the Enfield Montessori School, each Wednesday this month got on her bike and rode...
HARTFORD — Before he took his first bite of chicken here, Kevon Johnson had been giddy about leaving Jamaica and settling with his mother and sisters in Hartford's North End. "I was excited because it was my first time getting on an airplane," said Johnson, 18, who sometimes dreams of becoming...
GLASTONBURY — Two blue jays were hit by a car and one northern flicker had injuries from falling from its nest, but after the accidents, they were handed over to someone who would give them a second chance. Kasha Breau stepped into the flight cage at the Connecticut Audubon Center on South Main...
HARTFORD — Patricia Kelly, who founded Ebony Horsewomen in 1984, was about 9 when her family moved to the North End. Hers was only the second black family to move to the neighborhood, and the community was hardly welcoming. One day, when people were "causing a ruckus" on her family's front lawn,...
HARTFORD — It was a hot, rainy day in 2011 when Hartford animal control officer Sherry DeGenova received a call about something squirming around in a black bag near some railroad tracks in Hartford. Inside the wet bag was a pit bull mix, later named Kenway. Left there to die, he was emaciated and...
EAST HADDAM — When Bonnie Buongiorne founded Ray of Light Farm, it was like a light at the end of a tunnel. Buongiorne, 61, of East Haddam, said that she first had the idea to open a farm when she was diagnosed with cancer at age 39. "It happened because I made a promise to the universe, that if...
EAST HARTFORD — In the fading afternoon light on the fields by the Cabela's parking lot, Raul Octaviani shakes a stick of split bamboo strips, raps it against his thighs, making tempting, provocative noises. Twenty feet away a 16-month-old Belgian Malinois struggles against her restraints, waiting...
CANTON — Frances Schroeder, Marissa Garson and Ben Garson found one another through their common interest — dogs. They co-own Dogology, a pet-food retailer and dog training facility in Canton. While it may seem at odds with the business, Dogology also runs a free pet-food pantry in the back of...
When Jennifer Schulten approached her son's principal 10 years ago with the idea of starting a running program at the Middlefield grammar school, she barely had a plan. "I had no idea what I was doing," Schulten said. "I said 'Let's see what we can do.' I had a hunch that it could work." It didn't...
Shyheim Russell, a sophomore at Achievement First High School in Hartford, has a passion for sports. He plays basketball, soccer and track, and follows the Oklahoma City Thunder and New England Patriots. Yet, in the end, what he might enjoy most is Saturday Hoopsters, a program at Noah Webster...
WILLIMANTIC — When Ray Aramini was a boy, his mother used to volunteer for Meals on Wheels, driving food to homes. Ray would sometimes tag along. There was a man named Victor on the route. Ray's mother encouraged him to get out of the car and bring Victor his food. Aww, Mom. "I would say, 'Mom,...
SIMSBURY — Around 7 a.m. on a recent weekday, after a crack-of-dawn weightlifting session with some of her Simsbury High basketball teammates and before the manicure/pedicure appointment in advance of the upcoming prom, Katie Martensen discusses the handful of pursuits that probably make her one...
EAST GRANBY – From her vantage point on the Enfield High School field hockey field, Cookie Bromage could usually see when her husband Bob left school for the day. "Oh boy," she'd tell her players. "Get running right now because Mr. B's coming down the hill and if he sees you're not working hard,...
HARTFORD — On a muggy June afternoon, a stream of kids files into the boxing gym on Franklin Avenue and each one takes the same route inside. One by one, they shake hands with boxers of all ages. Eventually, each finds the 72-year-old man with a white ponytail. Jose Colon hugs some, jostles with...
When Kevin Frederick first saw Sabatino "Sabby" Zona, it was under Zona's deck at his family's home in Wallingford. After Zona was persuaded to leave his sanctuary and come out, he chose to stand in a distant corner in the backyard. Frederick understood because he knew Zona had autism, a developmental...
Jackie Allen-Doucot grew up with eight siblings in Hartford's South End, and as a young woman, she thought she'd have a big family, too. She and her husband, Chris, had two sons after they married in their early 20s, and not long after that, they started an after-school and Saturday morning program...
When Marvin Woodward was 12 and growing up in Hartford's North End, he lost his 37-year-old father Burnice, a Marine Corps veteran, to colon cancer. That left his mom, Rebecca, to raise two kids on her own. Woodward remembers that there were always people who stepped into the void left by his father's...
For Gary Mendell, the pain of losing his oldest son, the one he calls "my Brian," never goes away. "It is there every day and never dulls," Mendell said. "One of the saddest things for me is thinking that Brain had to die alone." Brian Mitchell Mendell had struggled with drug addiction for 10 years....
HARTFORD — Three words to describe a nurse are caring, compassionate and selfless, and Monique France is the epitome of all three. "She is the most caring personal I know," said Glendalee Morales, a co-worker at Connecticut Children's Medical Center, where France is a nurse. "She's got a lot going...
Debra Candelora readily admits that when it comes to children, she has one big soft spot in her heart for them. This might help explain why she and her husband, after raising three of their own, decided to foster, then adopt, three siblings. They had previously taken in the children's teenage sister....
If there were a contest for extreme volunteering, anyone in it would have a hard time competing against Laura LaCombe. Since 1999, LaCombe has assumed various roles as a volunteer for the American Cancer Society, Junior Achievement and the United Way of West Central Connecticut. More recent additions...
NEW HAVEN — When Mnikesa Whitaker started a ballet program at Fair Haven K-8 Middle School four years ago, she didn't expect much interest. "I thought it would be a couple of girls and me," said Whitaker, an English teacher at the school. "Seventy girls showed up for the first audition!" Since...
WETHERSFIELD — David Spicer, dressed in a red fleece and necktie patterned with musical notes, settles into the bench before his beloved Austin Organ in the choir loft of the historic First Church of Christ in Old Wethersfield and begins pulling out stops. With each pull, he adds a new layer to...
Lynne Williamson is really good at making a pest of herself. It's part of her job. Williamson goes to ethnic restaurants and asks the workers who the artists are in their community. She goes to celebrations and hangs around in the background taking pictures. She goes to churches with largely immigrant...
Victor Funderburk had never seen a play until his freshman year at the University of Connecticut. He doesn't remember what that play was, but he does remember thinking how he might have improved the student production. "I sat there saying, wow, this is awful. This would be fun to do better." Years...
Since debuting in 1987, CAST Children's Theatre has introduced hundreds and hundreds of young people to the exciting yet exacting world of stage acting under the watchful eyes of its director, Donna Mercier. For many she welcomed into the program, Mercier has not only been an artistic director,...
Creating theater in the shadow of decades-old institutions like Hartford Stage and TheaterWorks can be a formidable challenge for a theater company, but Hartford's HartBeat Ensemble — the relative new kid on the block at 14 years old — has found its niche by focusing on community and creating works...
HARTFORD — The three-tiered cake that 5-year-old Quinn Ostergren chose to mark her successful completion of chemotherapy for a brain tumor came as no surprise to Jennifer Wheaton. "She wanted female superheroes on her cake," said Wheaton, a child life specialist at Connecticut Children's Medical...
HARTFORD — He may look like Santa Claus to kids, but Dr. Paul Kanev was cool under fire when Lillian Colon brought her 3-year-old son to the emergency room in May 2003. Little Zachary Colon was unconscious. At the time Kanev was chief of neurosurgery at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield. The...
HARTFORD — Dr. Robert Brautigam still remembers the night Christopher Hartman was brought into the trauma room at Hartford Hospital. It was April 23, 2007. "Chris had very serious injuries," said Brautigam, who was part of the team that would work to save Hartman's life following a motorcycle crash...
HARTFORD — When the Malta House of Care Mobile Medical Clinic arrives at St. Augustine's church in the South End on a recent Thursday afternoon, patients already have lined up, waiting to be seen. Some took the bus or got a ride from a family member. Others walked from homes near and not so near....
The emergency department at Saint Francis Hospital and Medical Center can be hectic, but there's no other place Dr. Thomas Brunell would rather work. HARTFORD — The emergency department at St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center can be hectic, but there's no other place Dr. Thomas Brunell would...
HARTFORD — When Rebecca Santiago became a nurse she was taught how to treat the sick. But more than 30 years in public health has taught her that poverty may be the greatest threat to health and it takes a lot more than medicine to fix it. As a community health care nurse navigator for Saint Francis...
Dr. Donna McHugh I left my career due to hand injuries and was really feeling sorry for myself thinking my career as an artist was over. Because I wanted a doctor closer to home, I called Dr. McHugh and she accepted me as a patient. When I went to the first appointment, I knew Creator had sent...
In the early 1960s, at Southern Connecticut State College, James Barber held the record for the 120-yard high hurdles, and the 300- and 440-yard intermediate hurdles. The thing about runners — they never quit. New Haven has many heroes, and Barber is certainly one of them. The 76-year-old former...
BRANFORD — Judy Spaar knew in third grade that she wanted to be a teacher. "I grew up in Northford and my third-grade teacher was Mrs. Baylis," said Spaar, who has taught kindergarten at John B. Sliney School in Branford for more than two decades. "She had so much love for her students! I wanted...
HARTFORD — The high-pitched, controlled madhouse that is an elementary school cafeteria during lunch is when school safety officer Elpidio "Pete" Ramos becomes mediator-in-chief. Tending to the criers, inspecting the gap from a first-grader's missing front tooth and ushering children through the...
SIMSBURY — As a student at Hamden High School, Matt Spector remembers watching his brother, a special education student, volunteer at the Special Olympics. Spector said he remembered his brother's excitement, and knew he had to volunteer, too. The 25-year-old Simsbury High School teacher credits...
BERLIN — Fresh out of the University of Massachusetts in 1968 with a bachelor's in health and physical education and looking for a job, Alice Mitchell got as far as Berlin and stopped. "It seemed like a really nice community," Mitchell said when asked why she picked Berlin High School to start...
BLOOMFIELD — At Carmen Arace Middle School knitted socks have become part of the fabric of the community for fashion-conscious students. "It's like peer pressure," said Elicia Colon, a seventh-grade student. "Do you have your 'Tarbox socks?' " The socks are named after English teacher Maggie Tarbox,...