From Ernani DeAraujo:
I’m very excited to announce my support for Adrian Madaro to serve as our State Representative and am honored to be his campaign chairman.
Adrian has been my mentee since he was selected to be a John William Ward Fellow as a 17 year old at Boston Latin. He so impressed in his internship at City Hall--where he documented the environmental impacts of Logan on our community--that he was welcomed back to City Hall the next summer. Later, as a sophomore at Tufts University, he was unanimously chosen to receive the Ward Program’s DC fellowship and worked for United States Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. I recommended Adrian to the Board for the position of summer coordinator for the program--the youngest ever at the time--and he went on to create a summer speaker series for his fellow interns that had them personally meet with over a dozen congressmen, senators, and government officials--the highest number of meetings for the summer program ever.
When Rep. Basile asked me to refer a candidate to hire as his aide, I immediately reached out to Adrian who was a senior at Tufts and about to enter a Master’s program there in Public Policy and Urban Planning. Carlo offered him the job on the spot and Adrian quickly became the youngest Chief of Staff on Beacon Hill.
It was as Chief of Staff that Adrian became my mentor. While I served as Mayor Menino’s Liaison to East Boston I worked hand-in-hand with Adrian to meet the needs of our community. As the campaign proceeds I will share with you many of Adrian’s accomplishments for East Boston, but here I want to focus on what he did for the families on Chelsea Street who were displaced by the building collapses. Adrian worked around the clock to help clothe, feed, and house the over 70 individuals who were suddenly homeless. One week into the disaster, temporary housing for 30 individuals was about to expire. I told Adrian earlier in the afternoon to go attend his class while I stay with the families that evening. Once I saw the tension and need of the families that night I became anxious and overwhelmed by the challenge and called Adrian to please come back and help me. The poor guy--who hadn’t slept or eaten well in two weeks--crashed his car passenger door into a pole as he rushed over. He showed up, as he always does, and proceeded to organize shelter for all the families. A week later, we had found housing for every single individual, raised thousands of dollars for the families in a fundraiser he coordinated, and facilitated the City’s emergency response to restore Chelsea Street to livability.
That’s Adrian: determined, brilliant, and selfless. East Boston needs a leader in the State House who cannot only serve the needs of our community--as Adrian has done so ably and at times extraordinarily in the past 4 years--but also someone with the vision and intellect to steer our neighborhood through this present of complexity and dramatic change. I’ve seen Adrian communicate with individuals of all classes, intellects, cultures, and ethnicities; I’ve seen him speak Italian and Spanish, and make himself understood to people speaking Arabic or Vietnamese; he’s designed creative posters for community events and written brilliant memos to argue for a particular policy or legislation.
Folks, our neighborhood is poised for great things. Adrian is the State Representative East Boston deserves. I ask that you not only support his candidacy but join this campaign to make East Boston great. Thank you.
