Two women have done much for this community

I write this letter to express my personal appreciation to two extraordinary people and neighborhood heroes who have contributed so much to my home town, Jamaica Plain, as they each move on to new adventures, leaving behind a legacy of commitment, involvement and accomplishment.

Sandra “Sandee” Storey, founding publisher and editor of this newspaper, the Jamaica Plain Gazette, created a community voice that has thoroughly and accurately chronicled almost 20 years of history, progress and change in JP. Her newspaper has captured the neighborhood’s identity and character, and fostered a livability not experienced in other neighborhoods of Boston. Because of her reporting, commentating and editing informatively and perceptively what happens in the lives and affairs of our neighbors and neighborhoods as she has, her readers have been encouraged and empowered to become a greater part of their community. Sandee will not be equaled nor easily replaced.

Colleen Keller, as the Jamaica Plain liaison from the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Services, also leaves behind a difficult to be equaled record of contribution to the life and times of Jamaica Plain. With almost unlimited energy and enthusiasm, Colleen has planned and coordinated countless neighborhood events and city services, whether they be formal meetings, annual cleanups, neighborhood developments, public safety campaigns or parks and recreation improvements and celebrations, in addition to answering and solving an endless parade of individual questions and requests. In doing so she has kept us informed, involved and almost always improved.

I have written far too little to represent how much better off I think we all are due to the goodwill and contributions of Sandee and Colleen, but I doubt that I could ever write enough.

To Sandee Storey and Colleen Keller: We wouldn’t have become as we are without you. You made a difference, and you will be missed. Farewell, good fortune and thank you. See you around the neighborhood. 

Bob McDonnell
Jamaica Plain

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