Month: August 2011

3 businesses coming to 270 Centre St.

JACKSON SQ.—Seafood, body waxing and laundry machines are coming to three ground-floor retail spaces in the Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Development Corporation’s recently completed mixed-use residential/commercial building at 270 Centre St. Restaurant Themistocles Vlahoulis plans to open a restaurant he is…

New nonprofit helps people help themselves

“As much as possible, I’m getting out of the way,” says Jesús Gerena, director of the new JP-based Family Independence Initiative-Boston (FII-Boston). It’s an unusual mission statement for a social-service nonprofit, where intervention and advocacy are standard tactics. That’s because…

Students build bikes in new program

By Alicia Perez, Special to the Gazette BPS students built bikes—one for themselves, one for donation—in a new partnership with Bikes Not Bombs, a Jamaica Plain nonprofit organization, and Roxbury’s Madison Park Technical Vocational High School that launched this summer.…

$1m grant to help homeless vets

The JP-based Volunteers of America Massachusetts (VOAMA) has received a $1 million grant to help homeless and at-risk veterans. VOAMA estimates that there are over 1,000 homeless veterans and over 7,000 veterans living in poverty in Suffolk, Norfolk and Plymouth…