Yamini 00:07
Hey guys hope you’ve been doing well. This is Yamini your host and today we will be talking about a triumphant story which came out of an adversity and gave birth to a wonderful volunteer organization that is now in over 30 towns in Massachusetts and other parts of the country.
It is a special story for us. So we are doing it in two parts, recorded partly in my studio and partly on the field. This is an inspirational story of two women of Wayland, Pam and Sue. So what are we waiting for? Let’s dive in.
Almost 10 years before Facebook was founded, Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam noted the decline in social capital in America. He noted engagement levels in several groups of civic engagement, such as union memberships, failing teacher organization, volunteering had either declined or stalled. What’s more?, Americans were even bowling alone, neighborhoods are such a foundational social unit of our communities. We have all the world of social media took over and made us more connected and distant at the same time, neighborhoods were where people found connections with others.
Yamini 01:23
Our protagonist Pam Washek, a beneficiary of kindness and resolve of good neighbors made it her life’s mission to make sure that everyone could access the kind of support she needed from her neighbors in times of need. Out of this altruism, the neighbor brigade was born in Wayland. Alright, so let’s start with how Sue met Pam. I’m sure you’re intrigued about a connection.
Sue Parente 01:49
So I was going along, right raising my kids, go into work. This was about 10 years ago, and I got an email from Pam Washek. I had known Pam’s husband, because Washek Electric had been our electrician since we moved to Wayland, Kevin, such a great guy. And, and so through him, she contacted me and she said, Hey, Sue, I know you have this, you know, marketing PR background and I’d love to just, you know, talk with you for you know, half an hour would you meet me for coffee? You know, if I’m totally honest, I thought, you know, so busy. I don’t think I have time, you know, to do this. But you know, she’s so lovely and Kevin so lovely. Sure, I’ll meet for coffee. So we met at, it was burgers bagels at the time on Route 20. We met and by the end of the coffee, I was completely bought in to what she wanted to do.
Sue Parente 02:47
Now, when we sat down for coffee, she explained that she had had cancer when her kids were still very young, three girls very young. When that happened, really turned her life upside down, like how was she going to care for these kids and go through treatments and you know, all of that. It was in her shoulder, I believe it started in her shoulder and there’s a very hard to pronounce and remember name, I think part for it. But that’s but that’s where it started. But she battled it right and got through it. But it was hard and you know, I think, you know, scary, but at the same time, I think it really helped bring clarity for her around what she wanted to do and what she needed to do.
Yamini 03:42
But how did she have the idea for Neighbor Brigade?
(Here Sue discussing the genesis of the Neighbor Brigade).
Sue Parente 03:49
Her neighbors, very organically banded together and organized meals and rides and homework help and you know, all the stuff that you know needs to happen to make their day to day, you know, run out well. When she got better she and a friend Jean Sidon a close friend who had had a similar experience that came together and they said, you know, everybody should have that kind of support, maybe not everybody does have kind of a ready network to to jump into action, or an even if they do if you are being treated for several months. It’s hard for your small group of family and friends to maintain that kind of support. It’s, you know, it’s strange.
Yamini 04:42
What an insightful observation. While a handful of neighbors indeed can keep up the support for a few days, weeks even. They cannot do that for a family where someone’s undergoing cancer treatments. These treatments of course, last for months and the fact is that this is when you need to support even more and yet, nobody had thought about it, let alone do anything about it. The idea took hold and people rallied around it instantly.
Sue Parente 05:14
Right. So their idea was, okay, let’s, you know, pre arranged or pre organize a group of volunteers of neighbors. So they’re people who live right in your neighborhood, if something comes up, somebody needs help, a notification goes out, those people step up to the plate, everything’s organized within, you know, a matter of a couple of hours to take care of that family or that individual for months. So when they did this, originally, they called it Wayland Angels, because the recipients would say, you know, you’re like my angel, you know, you’re just what I need to thank you so much, it’s just that, that extra sense of caring and takes a little bit of the stress out of what’s an incredibly stressful situation.
So, so they became Wayland Angels, and they got, you know, organized, they got a software tool, and then the word started to spread. So they’re popped up a Sudbury angels and you know, conquered angels and a couple of them. Then unfortunately, Pam lost her close friend, Gene Sidon, to cancer. When that happened, something went off in Pam, a light bulb went off and she said, You know what, I need to, I need to make this a real thing I need to make this and as an official, you know, 5013 c? nonprofit,
Yamini 06:44
A nonprofit, yes. The wisdom of cancer, losing her friend to the disease that she had herself thought, Pam understood that she had to scale this, the world needed this scale.
Sue Parente 07:01
I think what her motivation was more about scaling. You know, okay, this was great that we created this here. But why don’t we share it when we figure out a way to share this blueprint, right, across multiple towns? It’s so funny, I really appreciated the practical nature of what she was trying to do, you know, that it really, it was never presented as this grand bold vision, it was more about, you know, practically being able to set up these networks and in this town, and then in this town, and how are we going to help other people hear about this, so that they can do that. So that, you know, I mean, where we are now is every year 1000s of people are helped, you know, that otherwise wouldn’t have been helped, you know, every year.
Yamini 07:51
Indeed, a practical need like this does not need a startup pitch, and avail the investor to take root and that’s exactly what happened. But so stresses, it wasn’t just the metadata, the idea, take nothing away from Pam, the person.
Sue Parente 08:07
At times when she was well, she just was able to move the ball forward. So, so effectively, you know, she just was determined. She again, she was a soft spoken person. You know, she was a gentle woman, gentle person, but she just could make things happen. She would get people enlisted, she would get to the right people. She was able to gather a small group of donors to help get it off the ground, you know, the founding group of donors who, I have to say, have just been awesome supporters these whole 10 years, because I think they just like they got it instantly. That yeah, this is a really, really good thing. It’s a good thing to strengthen our towns. It’s a good thing for the recipients, obviously, right? That’s obvious, but what is maybe less obvious is what a good thing this is for the people who volunteer and help. Because when you do that, when you know, a neighbor’s going through something, and you’re able to do something tangible. For that it makes, you know, it’s the best thing that you do all month, really.
I loved Pam, she is the hit. So here’s the thing. It was never about her. In fact, she was really funny, because when I was trying to help with the launch of it, I said, Tell Pam, we got to tell your story. It’s your personal story that you know will get people really interested and you know, she really didn’t love doing that and loved it herself. But she understood that that was probably what we had to do so she did let me do that. Just let me tell her personal story. But it wasn’t about her it was about creating this network of neighbors this caring safety net of neighbors.
Yamini 09:59
Pam commanded enormous love and respect in Wayland, and the wider community, a wife, mother and volunteering icon died after a 10 year battle with cancer in 2012. People still turn up in large numbers to attend functions that honor her memories.
Sue Parente 10:19
It was maybe a year ago. There’s a bench that was placed at the Wayland high school because Pam is a Wayland high graduate, at she and her husband, Kevin were both Wayland high graduates. So there is the bench installed at the new high school and we had a wonderful gathering. It was a fantastic, you know, Memorial.
Yamini 10:49
Well Pam came up with the idea and founded neighbor Brigade, she couldn’t live long enough to see what it would become. In fact, many other people who related with Pam, and her vision worked tirelessly to make neighbor Brigade, the success that it is. There are many key figures in our story and one of them is Sue.
I’m sure by now you surely want to know more about Sue and her role in Neighbor Brigade. So let’s talk about Sue and her journey from the very beginning.
Sue Parente 11:24
Well, my husband and I originally lived in Weston and then when we started to have our kids and we needed a little bit of a bigger house. We found a beautiful home in Wayland. That was 25 years ago. So all three of my kids have been, you know, born and raised in Wayland. It’s a wonderful neighborhood. It really is.
I have been in the public relations industry since I graduated from college. Initially I was working in kind of in retail space, I had done some work for Puma and, you know, had been on the consumer retail end of things. Then in 1990, I was brought into an agency that was founded by a gentleman in Weston, so just you know, next door, basically, that focus on technology. I really, really got the bug for tech PR and so I’ve been doing that for you know, the last several years, I would say, yeah, and that’s been great.
Here I am, you know, 55 years old, and I’m super excited about the work I do. Because with technology, it’s always innovating, there’s always something new, you just do not know what’s coming next, you know. So that’s been an exciting ride for me and I’ve really enjoyed it. So at this point, now I own a firm a small firm with two other women with offices in Boston and Chicago and we love it.
Pam was one of these people who, you know, she was small, maybe five foot one, maybe, and very quiet, soft spoken. But she was so sure of what she wanted to do with this organization. I was so taken by how simply brilliant, the idea was and and you know, that’s what excites me in my business, right? When, when we see an innovation, that’s just a simply brilliant idea. You know, why don’t you jump on it, you think, of course, we have to do this, you know, I have to help you in some way, you know, I have to be a part of it. So she let me be a part of it, which was really great and really life changing. This was 2009 It must have been because it was a year before the launch, the official launch of Neighbor Brigade and we’re getting ready to celebrate our big 10 year anniversary.
Yamini 13:55
By now I’m sure you want to know more about so and you already love her voice like I do. But let’s start with one of the stories that I recorded on the field and it was during this recording on the field. Sue really opens up about what was really going on in her heart, nor her mind when she heard and started getting involved with Neighbor Brigade.
Sue Parente 14:18
You know, I love it because it makes me feel closer to my mother. So my mother, I lost her a couple years ago. But she was, you know, has always been a big inspiration in my life because she’s somebody who was always about others, always right and the youngest of six. So she raised us and then, you know, she was a stay at home mom. Then when I was in high school, she has kind of her own personal crisis of Oh no, what do I do now? Right? My whole life has been around raising these kids and I mean she would do some other things with our church and things like that. But that was that was Really what she felt was her purpose.
Sue Parente 15:03
It was interesting for me because I went through that with her because I was the only one left at home and she was very open and kind of candid about how hard it was how hard that was for her. At the same moment, she ended up meeting a nun in inner city, Cleveland. So I was raised up just outside of Cleveland, who had said to her who ran a food pantry, and she said, you know, and I don’t know where to get the food. So my mother said, Well, I go to the grocery store three times a week, because I have this big family. I think I know where to get the food. So she went to the grocery stores that she went to, and she said, this food pantry needs food.
So they let her come twice a week with a station wagon, and they would put food in there that was maybe you know, a day old or, or whatever, but perfectly good still, and they’d load a precision wagon and she would go down to industry Cleveland and she would fill this food pantry. Long story short, she ends up connecting with this retired businessman who found out about her story because it grew like she then found other stores that would do it and she got other women to fill up their station wagons and go down to inner city clean the food.
This man said, have you ever heard of a concept called the food bank? He said I there’s one that started in Arizona, maybe we should think about that for Cleveland. So she went to I forget where it was in Arizona, maybe Tucson but that had one of the they had the first Food Bank. She learned all about it, the blueprint came back to Cleveland and with some support from my dad, and from this retired businessman, they put together a plan and they started the Cleveland food bank.
I mean, how incredible is that? Right? It was really just all about doing that practical thing right in front of you and figuring out a solution for it. All along with the journey, she kind of didn’t think that she could do it. You know, she’d like she used to say to me, she’s like, well, I wasn’t very good in school, and I wasn’t this. But you know, before you knew it, they made her like treasurer of the food bank.
She kept but she didn’t think she could do it, but she did it because somebody had to do it, you know, and then for the end, but she was that generation, you know, she was you know, a product of kind of the world war 2 generation and those women were very, very humble, very modest. They were just wanted to be useful, you know, without fanfare, zero fanfare, right? Like, she didn’t ever take credit for that stuff and I thought, you know, this made me feel so connected to her because I thought, well, this is something I could do, that’s right in front of me, that is practical, that is, you know, helping families and, and so it made me really happy in that way. Before and so I had gotten involved with Neighbor Brigade before I lost my mom, and she was so cute. I would call her and she’d be like, how’s your little nonprofit doing? I’m like, Well, you know, it’s doing great mom, we got another chapter. She was really excited about it. She asked about it a lot.
Yamini 18:18
So now tell me something, did this backstory make you smile, because it brought a big one to my face. I want to tell you something. Behind every successful woman, there is a woman or there is a tribe of women. So don’t forget to support women around you. Don’t forget to talk about them. Don’t forget to be there for them.
Sue Parente 18:45
I learned really early on in my career that you know, every article in the newspaper, you know, every story that you hear is about people. It starts with people. So I did convince her to tell her story a little bit. So but she really wanted to figure out how to make this work. You know, she again, very practical, she was a very practical person too.
Sue Parente 19:09
But you know, how can we make this work? How can we really make it valuable to people? The beauty of it is that her idea? It really did sort of organically grow and then it grew a little bit with a little bit of, you know, public relations, storytelling in each of the towns, you know where it started. Then there was the, you know, the globe picked up a few stories on it.
Then I got a call out of the blue, maybe two or three years after it launched from People Magazine. They had that is it angels among us or it was it was a section in the magazine that was like that, and they called me said you know, we heard about this thing called Neighbor Brigade and like, could we talk to you? Yeah, the PAM about it. I was like okay. So they ended up doing this really neat story, they came, they interviewed Pam and a few of the volunteers and recipients, and they did this really nice piece on it.
Then the phone was kind of ringing off the hook, from everywhere, all over the country, right to say, you know, this is such a great idea, how do I started? So, from there, you know, Pam and said, well, we’re growing this carefully, here in Massachusetts, you know, to make sure that we really have the blueprint, and we really have this down, and we’ve, you know, thought of everything, so that it can work. So that really was her focus.
But at the same time, she was really generous about saying, but if you want to start something like this in your town, you know, we don’t want to stop you can, here’s the blueprint, you know, here’s, how we did it, you know, but over the course of the years, you know, so we were so lucky to have Pam as kind of like the guiding force, and the visionary for this organization and as testament to the strength of that vision, after we lost her, which was really only maybe three years after neighbour brigade was officially launched. It has just continued its bits, you know, it’s flourished and I felt as though she was really looking out for us because at every turn, there was somebody there to pick up the torch.
Yamini 21:31
In the very beginning, you heard Sue, talk about how it was important to bring Pam’s story out in the world. But in my conversation with her, I never want saw her talking about herself. But I made sure that she did with my questions. She’s a team player, and an excellent board member for Neighbor Brigade and it’s evident from the way she talks about her team.
Let’s not forget this is the story of Pam, our protagonist, the Neighbor Brigade her creation, Sue Parente, an incredible Woman of Wayland our narrator.
Next episode, you’re going to get to know in detail about Neighbor Brigade, how to get involved with it, and about special fun event that’s around the corner. Do not forget to talk about this, tell your neighbor about this.
Happy National Neighbor day.
Stay tuned, rate review and subscribe, this is what can help us most right now.
This is Yamini your host and you’ve been listening to Women of Wayland – the podcast.