Blue Cross and Big Sister give back to Alice Taylor

"One community, one blue", was the motto when Blue Cross Blue Shield partnered with Big Sister Association in an annual service day at The Alice Taylor public housing development last Wednesday on September16.

By 9:45 am, over 40 employees and volunteers dressed in jeans and custom t-shirts began scraping and stroking paint brushes on benches, walls, and play gyms, hoping to make a difference in areas youths and residents use the most.

One of the community service coordinators, Nikki White of Big Sister Association, discussed the purpose of the service.

“It’s our (Big Sister Association) way of giving back to families and girls who live here at Alice Taylor,” she said. "Just knowing that we're doing it for them is special because they really deserve this.”

Last year, Blue Cross and Big Sister Association blessed The Franklin Field site with a service day. Volunteers recalled that rehabbing Franklin Field had been truly gratifying and also included a lot of team spirit and hard work.

“In our meetings when we discussed things that needed to be done, they would come off so ambitious with so many goals, so many goals that I almost thought they’d be here for a week,” laughed Isabel Hastie, Housing manager at Alice Taylor. “But they really ended up being a big help to the community.”

Hastie mentioned residents from 30-50 Bickford Street were overjoyed to see freshly painted entrance ways. Volunteers had different goals such as Blue Cross employee Danita Johnson’s team. Their goal was to paint at least 40 benches.

But impressively, Johnson managed to paint and scrape 30 benches in 80 degree weather alongside her co-workers, Kay-dee Peña, who wore a cast on her broken foot, Jonathan Lezerus, and Tim Obrien. 

“I don’t have a little sister, but if I did, I would hope that she’d be happy to see what I did for her,” said Johnson. “It’s about giving back and a lot of people don’t understand what it means to give back, but I do, because I’ve done community service since my freshman year in college. So I enjoyed doing this.”