CAPTIONS: Pictured, left to right, are CSAC Director Beth Rosenshein and CHAD Secretary Michael Charbonnier.

Charlestown Against Drugs and the Charlestown Substance Abuse Coalition members attended a forum last month that drew representatives from groups around the country sharing a common goal: reducing drug abuse in their neighborhoods.
“The important part of these conferences is the contacts you make, and hopefully, you come back with some additional knowledge,” said Mike Charbonnier, CHAD secretary and Boston Police Area A-1 community service officer.
On the recommendation of CHAD Chairman Peter Looney and Captain Bernie O’Rourke of the BPD, Charbonnier accompanied Beth Rosenshein, director of CSAC, to the Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America National leadership Forum from Feb. 12 to 15 in Washington, D.C. This year’s program entitled “Coalitions: the Road to Results” offered workshops and training and the opportunity to meet experts in the substance abuse field from around the country, including representatives from the DEA, Department of Education, and Congress. Participants also had the opportunity to see a preview of HBO’s upcoming documentary “Addiction,” which Charbonnier and Rosenshein both believe could be a useful tool for opening dialogue about drug abuse between parents and children.
“It brings to light the nature of different addictions and family struggles that come along with it,” said Rosenshein of the documentary that airs on March 15. “The ability to spread awareness across the country through HBO is very exciting and will hopefully open up dialogue in both communities and homes.”
Charbonnier added,” It’s important that parents sit down and watch it with their kids. When parents realize there’s a drug problem, it’s usually way too late.”
During their trip, Charbonnier and Rosenshein also visited Congressman Mike Capuano’s office and met with Missouri Congresswoman Jo Ann Emerson to discuss drug abuse as a national epidemic.
Charbonnier said the meeting emphasized that substance abuse isn’t a problem specific to Charlestown. “It’s promising to know we’re not alone in this,” he said.
The workshops covered the gamut of substance abuse problems from those prevalent in Charlestown, such as heroin addiction, to others that have little impact on this community, including the abuse of methamphetamine, as well as paint thinner and other inhalants. Many panel discussions addressed a problem that is now an affliction nationwide: pharmaceutical drug abuse.
“Kids think problems can be solved with a pill,” Charbonnier said, adding that the $10 billion was spent on pharmaceutical drug advertising in the U.S. alone last year.
Prevention, intervention and treatment were also popular workshop topics, illustrating how attitudes surrounding substance abuse have changed in recent years.
“It wasn’t long ago that people suffering from addiction were thought to be morally flawed. Now, we know that’s not the case,” Charbonnier said. “As a result of scientific research, we now know that it is a disease that affects the brain and behavior. We can use this knowledge to develop treatment and prevention approaches that reduce the toll that drug abuse takes on our community and our families.”
And while Charbonnier and Rosenshein found it useful to share knowledge and drug-fighting techniques with experts from across the country, they both believe the problem must be addressed at home first.
“What they repeated over and over again is they can’t do it at the federal level unless we do it on a local level,” Rosenshein said.

CAPTION: Christina Wilhelm (front center) and the Charlestown Chorale at the USS Constitution’s annual Independence Day turnaround on July 4, 2005.

Six months after founder and musical director Christina Wilhelm moved from the neighborhood in July, the Charlestown Chorale called its quits in January.
“No one else was willing to take it over,” said Wilhelm from her Arizona home. “For me, it’s a great loss because I got to know everyone and we became like a family.”
The chorus dates back to 1996, when a group of Christmas carolers led by Wilhelm sang from atop Engine 50 at the invitation of firefighters from the Winthrop Street station. In 1997, the group began to gather formally in a space secured by Kristin Johnson of the Charlestown Working Theater, whom Wilhelm credits as the Chorale’s first supporter. The following years saw them perform everywhere from a graduation ceremony for Boston by Foot tour guides at Old North Church to a memorial service at the John F. Kennedy Library for a Boston law firm that lost several employees on Sept. 11 to an event at Faneuil Hall honoring the 200th anniversary of the Charlestown Navy Yard.
In 1998, the Chorale appeared as part of the annual Christmas tree-lighting ceremony at the USS Constitution This became an annual tradition for them and consistently ranked among their most memorable performances.
For Wilhelm, the biggest incentive for starting the Chorale was giving back to the community that she moved to in 1995.
“I believe strongly that when you move to a place by choice, you do it because you want to be a part of a community,” she said. “By the same token, it’s important to give back to that community, and the way I knew how to do that was through music.”
She added, “It brought a real sense of community to the people involved and the people of Charlestown.”
And Wilhelm’s contributions didn’t go unnoticed, either: She was recognized with a Charlestown Community Appreciation Award several years ago for her work with the Chorale.
The Chorale grew over the years and, during its heyday, boasted nearly 30 singers. Its membership dwindled to 16 in recent years, which Wilhelm attributes to members moving away and having other traditions. “We went through a gamut of life experience, almost like a real family,” she said.
These days, Wilhelm remains active musically with the Santa Cruz Singers, the Chorale she founded in Arizona in 2002. (The Singers and Chorale have collaborated on two occasions: at a joint concert in Arizona in 2004 and again in Charlestown the following year).
The Chorale’s last appearance was at the annual Christmas tree-lighting at the USS Constitution in December, but Wilhelm, who maintains a residence in Boston, hasn’t ruled out a reunion for next holiday season.
“That was always a fun thing to do and a real privilege,” she said. “There’s always hope, and you never know what’s going to happen.”

As a Longwood Place resident, Damien Donovan believes that Charlestown has little to offer in the way of amenities. As one of the new owners of Paolo’s restaurant, he hopes to help change that.
“We all enjoyed Paolo’s but thought that it hadn’t reached its potential as a neighborhood restaurant,” said Donovan, who, along with Adam Hawk and his wife, Renee, took over the Main Street eatery on Dec. 30. “We always found the staff to be wonderful but the atmosphere to be lacking.”
Born in 1973, Donovan grew up on Baldwin Street and attended the Belmont Hill School in Belmont, Mass. He earned a bachelor’s degree in history from Los Angeles’ Occidental College in 1996 and moved back to Boston, where he began working in legislative affairs for the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority. On the weekends, Donovan also worked as a bar back at the Pour House on Boylston Street. It was through the Pour House that he made a contact at the Boston restaurant conglomerate, the Lyons Group.
Donovan soon joined the Lyons Group and was part of the team that opened the Big Easy, a New Orleans-themed bar in the Alley in Boston’s Theatre District. By 1999, he was managing two of the Lyons Group’s Alley establishments. Donovan became the restaurant manager for the then-struggling Harvard Gardens the following year. Since he was a Beacon Hill resident at the time, he had a good feel for the neighborhood and was able to adapt Harvard Garden more to its residents’ tastes.
“Through word of mouth, food, music and atmosphere, we were able to create a place that is still today one of the busiest places for young professionals in Boston,” he said.
By 2001, Harvard Gardens was essentially running itself, and Donovan left to oversee two other Lyons Group establishments, Sophia’s, a tapas restaurant in the Fenway, and the Tiki Room. Not long afterwards, the Lyons Group tapped Donovan to help revamp its three bars at the Mohegan Sun Casino, where he began working with his future business partner, Adam Hawk. (Donovan and Hawk met previously at Harvard Gardens, but had never worked together).
In 2004, the Lyons Group struck a deal with the Red Sox to open Game On, a sports bar, at Fenway Park, which proved an especially big undertaking following the Sox’ World Series victory several months earlier. Together, Donovan and Hawk oversaw construction and every other facet of the operation to ensure that Game On was up and running by Opening Day, when the Red Sox played the Yankees and the team raised its world championship banner.
Following the grand opening of Game On, Hawk stayed on as general manager, while Donovan took a leave of absence.
“I was trying to find a new opportunity and decide whether I wanted to stay in this business or not,” Donovan said.
Damien took other work and left the restaurant business behind until last fall, when Adam Hawk told him he heard that Paolo’s was for sale. Donovan and Adam and Renee Hawk were the immediate abutters to Paolo’s and frequented the restaurant. Soon, the three of them entered into negotiations to take over the restaurant. “We were able to quickly secure loans and start operating sooner than we thought,” Donovan said,
Upon taking over Paolo’s at the end of 2006, the new owners immediately changed the restaurant’s lighting and music to better suit the neighborhood — just as Donovan had done earlier at Harvard Gardens. While only minor alterations have been made to the menu so far, the hours of operation are more steady now, as are the hours for delivery. Soon, Paolo’s will offer Sunday brunch and more specials, which Donovan hopes will attract customers to the restaurant again and again.
“We want people to eat here two times a week, not two times a month,” Donovan said. “We’re still in the infant stages, but we’re starting to get repeat customers.”

CAPTION: Sean O’Brien, president of Teamsters Local 25, speaking in favor of the Employee Free Choice Act at last week’s rally.

Last Friday’s rally at the Charlestown office of Teamsters Local 25 aimed to draw attention to the ongoing struggle many workers who wish to join a union now face.
A standing-room only crowd turned out to the day room to show their support for the Employee Free Choice Act, bipartisan legislation co-sponsored by Sen. Ted Kennedy that would allow workers to form unions more easily and without repercussions from their employers. While Sen. Kennedy was not in attendance, Congressman Edward Markey and Congressman Stephen Lynch, a former ironworker and one-time president of Ironworkers #7, both spoke in favor of the new legislation.
“All we’re asking for is to give people the right to collectively bargain,” Congressman Lynch said. “The only way we can balance the scales on the part of the American worker is to help them collectively bargain.”
Also in attendance were Federal Express drivers, who recently won the right to form a union following a lengthy battle with their employer and whose plight launched the Teamsters’ campaign in support of the EFCA more than a year ago.
Sean O’Brien, who was named the new president of Local 25 last year, was pleased with both the turnout at the rally and with the implications of the new legislation.
“We finally have a chance to allow people union status with a lot less pain,” O’Brien said, adding that unions set the bar for wages and healthcare nationally. “It’s our opportunity to grow unions across the country and to create a true middle class.”