On Saturday, April 22, current and former BCNC staff and students surprised him and came together to celebrate our long-term volunteer, Jim Loughlin and thank him for 30 years of service to BCNC. We are thankful for Jim’s dedication and commitment to BCNC and our participants since the summer of 1993.

Stephen Hunter, Director of Adult Education, shared, “Volunteers like Jim play a crucial role in creating positive change, and their impact extends far beyond the hours they contribute. They are the heart and soul of BCNC, and we are honored to have Jim as part of our BCNC family.”

Katie Hamel, BCNC adult teacher, shared, “I always tell my students that communication and human connection are more important than perfection. Jim is wonderful at human connection. He’s humble, and openminded, and kind. He gets to know students personally. Jim can connect with and learn from anyone he meets.

 Jim recognizes the humanity and life experiences of our adult students. His kindness and openness give students confidence- when they talk with Jim, they feel safe, and they feel a sense of belonging.”

Fred Bennett, Assistant Director of Adult Education, shared about Jim and the impact he has made over the years:

“Jim has been volunteer for 30 years, since the summer of 1993. Of course, back in 1993, we weren’t in this fancy Pao Arts Center, or even the main BCNC building on Ash Street. Jim was tutoring in an old 4-story brick building on Oak Street where the courtyard of the Metropolitan apartments and condos is now.

That was actually the luxurious room:  a big table, plenty of chairs and even an air conditioner. Sometimes our tutoring space for him was not so great.

I remember him once holding class on the ground floor of that same small brick building, tutoring in a child care classroom with the children’s tables and Jim sitting on a child’s chair.

It seems like Jim really did get instructions from high up, from a higher authority when he began his teaching as a high school teacher for 5 years with the Jesuits.

After that he took a bit of a diversion and worked for two decades in the aerospace industry at General Radar, before he returned to his true calling and began his long run of volunteering and teaching here at BCNC.

Now with 30 years of leading English conversations for students, and listening to learners practice their pronunciation, and putting up with BCNC staff like me constantly giving him advice, he probably got tired of us at times … but he usually knew how to handle that.

Jim regularly helps as a paid substitute teacher for us in our English classes, but he routinely sends back our checks endorsed to BCNC as donation. Jim is really our main morning emergency sub teacher – gets in an hour before class, with his coffee, and starts poring through the lesson materials.

Of course, he has 300 questions for me about the contents – but I know that, at a certain time, he has to go downstairs and start teaching the class, so those questions have to come to an end.

But this way Jim approaches his teaching, coming in early to prep for class, and often following up his class or tutoring session with hours of research on grammar points to get a convincing answer to some question that came up in his teaching, is just one sign of his passion for education and its effects on people’s lives.

He picked this up from his master’s studies at Boston College and especially Wesleyan University. He continues even now in his self-study; I frequently find him reading a history text. He spent a year – or more – reading the entire works of Shakespeare. Just a few years after he started tutoring English at BCNC, Jim started auditing classes in English teaching at Harvard and Boston University.

He can’t walk through Chinatown without running into someone who shouts out “Jim!” He really is Jim 叔叔,“Uncle Jim” to so many; not just his many tutees, but their entire families, too, some of whom are here today.

Jim embodies BCNC’s efforts to be “family focused.” Since they were young children, Jim has been a patient, listening friend to Sophia and Selina, the daughters of his first BCNC tutee, Helen; over the years they’ve gone together to concerts and Red Sox games, and Jim attended some of their school presentations and graduations and now both have finished college.

Even after 30 years, Jim seems more engaged volunteering than ever. He now comes in to the BCNC office in Chinatown two days a week for 1-1 tutoring, has another tutoring session on Zoom during the week, and has most recently been class aide to our citizenship class on Saturdays.

As he has told me many times, the best gift we give Jim is to be part of his life and let him be part of ours; thank you to all who came here today or sent in videos or kind words; we are all the evidence of how much positive impact his 30 years here have had on us, BCNC and our community—for an agency whose vision of success is a thriving community, this is what it we want to see.”