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Trinity Boston ConnectsTrinity Boston Connects
  • ABOUT
    • Vision and Mission
    • History and Values
    • Essential Community Practices
    • Impact
    • Team
    • Board of Directors
    • Board of Visitors
    • Partners
    • Annual Reports
    • Contact
  • PROGRAMS
    • Sole Train
    • TEEP
    • Trinity@RuthBatson
    • OEP
    • TBCC
  • GET INVOLVED
    • Youth Program Registration
    • Job Opportunities
    • Volunteer or Intern
    • Racial Healing Challenge
  • NEWS & RESOURCES
    • Updates
    • Calendar
    • Resource Center
  • MEDIA
    • Podcasts
    • videos and photos
  • SPECIAL EVENTS
    • BFY
    • Sole Train 5k
    • Boston Marathon
    • Rodman Ride
  • DONATE
register + sponsor

about BFY 2025

Throughout its history, Trinity Boston Connects (TBC) has been a beacon of hope, healing, and guidance for young people. That legacy lives on through our Youth Development & Leadership (YDL) Pathway. Grounded in our three Essential Community Practices – racial equity, trauma-informed care, and restorative justice – the YDL pathway creates vital spaces for healing and growth for Boston’s young people of color. As challenges to our vision of an equitable Boston continue to rise, we are called to deepen our commitment and expand our impact with even greater hope and resilience.

Healing Can’t Wait. Not another election cycle, year, month, day, or moment. Right now, youth of color in our city are grappling with the ongoing trauma of systemic racism – in schools, at home, and in their communities. As the world around us continues to shift, the path to equity becomes increasingly uncertain. We cannot afford to wait for change – we must create it, now, together.

We invite you to stand with us on Thursday, June 5, 2025, at the 18th Annual Bostonians for Youth Gala. This year, the fierce urgency of now compels us to lift Healing Can’t Wait as both our theme and collective declaration.

Come celebrate, strategize, and learn more about how TBC is building on decades of healing and how you can get involved in our YDL programs. We are reinvigorated, refreshed, and reaffirming our commitment to Boston’s youth.

Join us!

event details

DATE + TIME

Thursday, June 5, 2025 • 6PM

EVENING SCHEDULE

Reception 

Dinner + Program

Leader of Change Award

QUESTIONS?

Contact Jennifer Fallon: jfallon@trinityconnects.org

download invite

Honoring Petrina Martin Cherry

Petrina Martin Cherry is a seasoned health equity professional and the Vice President of Community Engagement & External Affairs at Boston Medical Center Health System, leading strategic initiatives aimed at advancing healthcare equity, economic mobility, workforce development in healthcare and the life sciences, and addressing social determinants of health. Known for her expertise in building strong, collaborative relationships, Petrina has been instrumental in developing community-based programs that provide access to healthcare to under-resourced communities, raise awareness of Sickle Cell Disease, support BMC’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout, promote mental health and wellness, women’s health, reduce recidivism, and foster sustainable empowerment in historically underserved communities.

Petrina was appointed by Mayor Walsh in 2020 to the City of Boston’s COVID-19 Health Inequities Task Force and by Governor Maura Healey to the Council on Black Empowerment and Mass Cultural Governing Council and serves on the board of directors of The Boston Foundation, The Boys and Girls Club of Boston, Boston Arts Academy, The Urban League of Eastern MA (Emeritus), and the Advisory Board of the American Hospital Association. TBC’s Leader of Change Award is one of many prestigious awards achived, including The Disparities Solutions Center of Massachusetts General Hospital’s Disparities Leadership Program Award, The Boston Celtics Heroes Among Us Award, The American Hospital Association Foster G. McGraw Prize, and The Leadership Brainery’s Change Can’t Wait Medal of Equity Award.

Hosted by Paris Alston

Paris Alston is the host of GBH News Rooted. She was previously co-host of Morning Edition and The Wake Up podcast at GBH News. She has done live coverage of Massachusetts’ elections, the unveiling of the Embrace monument to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King, the 2023 national NAACP convention, where she interviewed Vice President Kamala Harris, and the 2024 Celtics Championship Parade. She also does community-based reporting for her award-winning original series “A Walk Down the Block,” and produces regular segments for the original mental health series “Wake Up Well.”

Before joining Morning Edition, Paris was a host of the NPR podcast Consider This, produced in conjunction with GBH and WBUR. She also served as the host of GBH’s digital series Keep it Social about social media trends, targeted at millennial and Gen Z audiences. Prior to that, she broke into the industry as an intern at UNC-TV in North Carolina and NBC10-Philadelphia and a producer at GBH and WBUR. She has reported on stories from Southeast Asia, Morocco, Panama and Brazil.

A North Carolina native, Paris is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she studied media and journalism and global studies. She recently earned a Social Impact MBA from Boston University. She is a member of the Boston and National Associations of Black Journalists and has worked extensively with print, digital, video, audio and social media.

register and / or sponsor today!

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2025 Host Committee

Jeannette Fiala, Co-Chair
Mass General Brigham

Dennis Tyrell, Co-Chair
Ashmont Counseling Associates

The Reverend Morgan S. & Missy Allen 
Trinity Church in the City of Boston 

Michael Curry 
Mass League of Community Health Centers 

Eric Esteves
Boston Main Streets Foundation

Dr. Rufus Faulk
Roxbury Community College
The MIX Boston
 

State Representative Brandy Fluker-Reid
Commonwealth of Massachusetts
House of Representatives, 12th District
 

Annissa Essaibi George
Big Sister Association of Greater Boston  

Charles George
Compass  

Gabriel Gladstone
Fisher Phillips  

Imari Paris Jeffries
Embrace Boston 

Danielle Johnson 
Spark FM Online

Debbie Johnson 
GlaxoSmithKline  

Judith & Mark King 
Trinity Church Parishioners

Dr. Aisha Miller
Related Beal

Tamara & Brandon Odom
Converse
The Fessenden School

Mike Parker
Flagship Energy Partners

Louise Burnham Packard

Dr. M. Lee Pelton 
The Boston Foundation 

Monica Roberts
Girl Scouts of Eastern Massachusetts

Nancy Rachel Rousseau
Black Economic Council of Massachusetts

Christopher Smart & Shari Loessberg
The Arbroath Group
MIT Sloan

Chris Smith
Boston After School & Beyond

Judy & Bill Steul
Trinity Church Parishioners

Adrian Walker
The Boston Globe

Sandy Zamor Calixte

Monica Zeno-Martin
Parenting Journey

Thank You to Our 2024 Sponsors

* denotes Trinity Boston Connects, Board of Director

Presenting Sponsors
$25,000

Anonymous (2) 

Janet and Dave* Aldrich  

Judy and Bill Steul 

Leading Sponsors
$10,000

Allison and David* Donelan 

Judith and Mark King 

Shari Loessberg and Christopher Smart* 

Louise Burnham Packard and Murray Metcalfe 

Rodman for Kids  

Jeanne and Dan* Ross 

State Street Corporation 

TJX Companies 

Pam Warren and Peter Lawrence 

Resiliency Sponsors
$5,000

Robert Ellis Alan  

Margret Cooke* and David Crowley 

Stephen Hendrickson and David McCord 

Barbara and Amos Hostetter 

Justice Resource Institute  

Laura McTaggart and Tom Nolan 

Martha and Mike Parker 

Elizabeth* and Robert Smith 

Jeanne and Don Stanton 

Empowerment Sponsors
$3,000

BECMA 

Shelby Cabral Smither* 

Marty Childs 

Prime Buchholz 

Jill* and Read Norton  

Morgan, Lewis, & Bockius, LLP 

Addie Swartz and Joel Rosen 

Trinity Church in the City of Boston 

Mentoring Sponsors
$1,000

Ronald Akie and David Mooney 

Kenzie Bok 

Elise and Pierce Browne 

Connie Coburn and James Houghton 

Leslie Colburn 

Martha and Robert Cowden 

Cummings Foundation 

Kathryn and David Dahl 

Jeannette and Josh Fiala 

Paul Finnegan 

Sula Fiszman  

Elisabeth Frost and Paul Zintl 

Charles L. George* 

Global for Good 

Katherine Gross 

Kathleen Hirsch and Mark Morrow 

Charlene and Charles Hyle 

Vincent James 

Debbie* and Chris Johnson 

Michael Miles 

Liz and Keith Morgan 

Liz and Keith Morgan 

Nina and Marshall Moriarty 

Ruth Morris and Peter Kelly 

Emily and Chuks Okoli 

Sheila and John Peterson 

Tricia and Chris Schade 

Darryl Settles  

Lynn and Peter Smiledge 

Margot and Olie Thorp  

Marlene and William Walch 

Adrian Walker* 

Pam Waterman* and Michelle Coleman 

Institutional Sponsors

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TJX
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