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SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2016 THE HARTFORD COURANT
HOMETOWN HEROES: Good Neighbors
“When I saw him I said, ‘Yeah, he’s a troublemaker in school, but he’s got a
huge heart, he’s personable, wonderful and lovable.’”
Elena Sileo
PROVIDING HELP, AND A HOME
A Torrington Guidance Counselor Stepped In When A Young Student Needed A Place To Stay
By MIKAELA PORTER JON OLSON | SPECIAL TO THE COURANT
mmporter@courant.com ELENA SILEO, right, and her husband are the legal guardians for Biende Berroa Sanchez. Berroa, who came to Torrington from the Do-
minican Republic with his family when he was 10, was 15 when his father decided to move to Massachusetts. Berroa didn’t want to move,
T ORRINGTON — Elena Sileo is and Sileo agreed to let him stay at her home. Eight years later, he is still living with Sileo and her husband.
described by her students as
someone who goes out of her Some students have sought help for drugs supervising female inmates, she leads many The school also has a program that
way to do the right thing, a and alcohol through a 10-week program she after-school programs for students. recognizes students for their positive
superhero, a second mom. For one former runs called the Insight Group. impacts on the school community, called
student in particular, Sileo is a second mom. Once a month she meets with Caught on Candid Character. Yet again, it’s a
Andrew Marchand, a business teacher at high-performing high school juniors program that Sileo leads.
Biende Berroa said he barely spoke Torrington High, said he has sought Sileo’s through a chamber of commerce-sponsored
English when he moved to Connecticut advice on how to interact with students. junior leadership program. “There’s just so much she does, from
from the Dominican Republic at age 10. The “I’ve been able to get more out of them after providing food, shopping for students to get
following year he met Sileo; she was his that advice. ... She’s outstanding, she goes the Sileo also works with teen parents and back to school, that’s things that are out of
middle school guidance counselor who lived extra mile and is passionate about her pregnant teenagers through a program her pocket,” Berroa said. “She opens YMCA
around the corner and gave him his first job. students,” he said. called Even Start, which teaches parenting memberships for students and volunteered
During his freshman year at Torrington skills and encourages pregnant students to at the homeless shelter overnight.”
High School, his father told him they were Sileo’s cozy office is covered with stay in school and graduate.
moving to Massachusetts, but Berroa said he motivational posters and pictures of her Sileo also has made a habit of leaving
didn’t want to move; he had made friends family, students and dogs. One bookshelf is And she leads Lungs for Jenny, a group of kindness cards around Torrington, which
and felt at home in Torrington. He turned filled with sweatshirts, T-shirts, jeans and students who do community service include a few dollars and a motivational
for advice to Sileo, who offered to take him sneakers — “in case anyone needs projects in memory of a student who died message. She isn’t a stranger to paying for a
in, and his father consented. Later, Sileo and something,” Sileo explained. from a lung illness. The group has raised diner’s tab at a restaurant, either, her family
her husband became Berroa’s legal money for a number of causes, papered the says.
guardians. After school ends, Sileo’s day continues. school with motivational quotes and is
In addition to her part-time work as a planning to bring encouraging letters to a “She sees the good in everyone,” Berroa
“We became a family together,” Berroa Torrington Police Department matron sick middle school student. said.
said. “She gave me a home.”
Berroa, 23, admits he often acted up in
school, but Sileo would take him and other
students on trips and give them jobs after
school like shoveling snow or washing cars
to keep them focused.
“When I saw him I said, ‘Yeah, he’s a
troublemaker in school, but he’s got a huge
heart, he’s personable, wonderful and
lovable,’ ” said Sileo, 37.
Berroa is now a student at Northwestern
Community College studying criminal
justice. He wants to be a police officer and
hopes to help teenagers the way Sileo has
helped him.
“If it wasn’t for her pushing for me to go
to school, I would have either dropped out
or worked at a factory,” Berroa said. “She
told me to go to school, strive for greatness …
be successful.”
Berroa isn’t the only teenager to have
called Sileo’s downtown Torrington house
home. Sileo and her husband are licensed
foster parents and have provided a home to
nearly a dozen teenagers for time periods as
short as a weekend to as long as several
years.
Similarly, when their neighbor was
diagnosed with cancer, Sileo paid to make
sure the neighbors’ driveway would be
shoveled in the winter and the grass cut in
the summer.
Sileo, her husband and Berroa share their
home with two pit bulls and a cat. Both the
dogs are rescue animals, and one was
adopted the day before he would have been
euthanized, Sileo said.
For the past six years Sileo has been a
full-time guidance counselor at Torrington
High School. She said she works with about
170 students, whose needs range from
getting into college to battling homelessness.
“I’d think, ‘What a shame, why don’t people pick that up?’ Then I looked in
the mirror and said, ‘What’s wrong with you?’”
Gerald Blanchette
ONE-MAN ANTI-LITTER PATROL
Bristol Man Has Made His Rounds On Memorial Boulevard Nearly Every Day For 20 Years
By DON STACOM “My father would tell us on the weekend many of his mother’s relatives were already and noticing litter.
to pick up anything around the house. We living in the city. He taught seventh and “I’d think, ‘What a shame, why don’t
dstacom@courant.com had an earth driveway, and after a rain we’d eighth grade for 10 years, and, in 1968,
have to go out with wheelbarrows and bring became assistant principal at the Memorial people pick that up?’ Then I looked in the
B RISTOL — On a typical it all back up,” Blanchette says. Boulevard School. Not long afterward, he mirror and said, ‘What’s wrong with you?’ I
morning’s rounds, Gerald bought his home on Willcox, a little less than starting picking up what was down by the
Blanchette logs about 3.3 miles Blanchette didn’t want to follow his a half-mile away. river — it was a pleasant walk, a good deed
and gathers several bags’ worth father’s path as a carpenter with the New and I got in my exercise,” Blanchette says.
of debris. York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, “We had great custodians, but if I saw
and instead set out to become a teacher. He paper on the floor at school, I’d pick it up. I Since then, Blanchette has established a
Wearing a reflective safety vest, recalls having several excellent teachers at was assigned to the cafeteria at lunch hour, steady routine.
Blanchette strides up and down Memorial Assumption Prep in Worcester, and thinking and if kids dropped something, I’d have
Boulevard and a few nearby blocks, that teaching would be a better life than them clean it up,” he recalls. He changes into old sneakers and worn
gathering the previous day’s accumulation laboring on the railroad. work clothes after breakfast with friends at
of discarded cigarette packs, empty beer “I’m not a clean freak,” he says. “But the Crystal Diner. In the winter, he prefers
bottles and other litter. After serving in the Army in the Korean there’s a proper way to be in a place, and you lined pants, a sweater and a jacket. He carries
War, Blanchette used the G.I. Bill to attend don’t throw things on the floor.” gloves for whenever he’s lifting trash into one
He stops every few blocks to dump it all college and then landed a teaching job at the of the two worn fabric bags he carries on his
into one of the city’s trash barrels, then Jennings School in Bristol. His brother and When he retired in 1992, Blanchette rounds. The bright safety vest is always part of
resumes his unofficial cleanup patrol. began walking along the Pequabuck River the attire; traffic on Memorial Boulevard and
South Street is heavy in the morning and
Plenty of neighborhoods have good PATRICK RAYCRAFT | PRAYCRAFT@COURANT.COM drivers are often impatient.
Samaritans who occasionally tidy up, but
Blanchette is something more. He makes his FOR THE PAST 20 years, Gerry Blanchette, 86, has walked for about an hour and a half Empty beer cans and whiskey bottles turn
rounds nearly every day of the year, and he’s along Memorial Boulevard in Bristol every day to pick up litter. up along the route more days than not, he says.
been doing it for more than two decades. Scraps of paper, cardboard boxes, crumpled
cigarette packs and broken hubcaps are fairly
“Some days I miss, but I’m pretty good common, and Blanchette has had to carry the
about going out seven days a week. It’s my carcasses of chipmunks, squirrels and even a
exercise — and I get to do a good deed,” says raccoon or two to the nearest trash can. Tires
Blanchette, who looks and sounds far get propped up along a fence for a city crew to
younger than his 86 years. haul off, and abandoned shopping carts get
wheeled toward Main Street where they’ll be
“I retired at 62 and I’ve been doing this retrieved, he says.
since I was 63, maybe 64,” he says in the
kitchen of his Willcox Street home. He doesn’t go out during heavy snowfalls
or rainstorms, or when snow has covered
In his bright yellow vest and carrying two the sidewalks. Especially during the chilly
worn fabric bags, Blanchette has become a months, Blanchette keeps up a fast pace
sort of moving landmark on Memorial throughout his walk.
Boulevard and South Street.
“I’m not one to mosey. I take stairs two at
“Gerry’s very dedicated, he’s very highly a time,” he says. “I’ve always been fast.”
regarded. He sets a fine example of caring
about our neighborhood,” says Dennis New- From time to time, someone will join him
man, another Willcox Street homeowner. for a few cleanups, but they never stay for
very long, he says.
“Everybody knows him. You see him out
there going up and down the boulevard. It’s Blanchette says his faith as a Catholic is
great,” Mayor Ken Cockayne says. “It’s good part of what motivates him, along with the
to have volunteers get involved, and it’s good lessons from his childhood.
to see the pride he has in our city.”
“The church will show you right from
Blanchette credits his work ethic to his wrong,” he says. “I think a lot starts out at
upbringing in New Bedford, Mass., where he the home. That’s where you have to be
and his brothers were regularly assigned to taught.”
clean up around their home and yard.
HOMETOWN HEROES: Good Neighbors
“When I saw him I said, ‘Yeah, he’s a troublemaker in school, but he’s got a
huge heart, he’s personable, wonderful and lovable.’”
Elena Sileo
PROVIDING HELP, AND A HOME
A Torrington Guidance Counselor Stepped In When A Young Student Needed A Place To Stay
By MIKAELA PORTER JON OLSON | SPECIAL TO THE COURANT
mmporter@courant.com ELENA SILEO, right, and her husband are the legal guardians for Biende Berroa Sanchez. Berroa, who came to Torrington from the Do-
minican Republic with his family when he was 10, was 15 when his father decided to move to Massachusetts. Berroa didn’t want to move,
T ORRINGTON — Elena Sileo is and Sileo agreed to let him stay at her home. Eight years later, he is still living with Sileo and her husband.
described by her students as
someone who goes out of her Some students have sought help for drugs supervising female inmates, she leads many The school also has a program that
way to do the right thing, a and alcohol through a 10-week program she after-school programs for students. recognizes students for their positive
superhero, a second mom. For one former runs called the Insight Group. impacts on the school community, called
student in particular, Sileo is a second mom. Once a month she meets with Caught on Candid Character. Yet again, it’s a
Andrew Marchand, a business teacher at high-performing high school juniors program that Sileo leads.
Biende Berroa said he barely spoke Torrington High, said he has sought Sileo’s through a chamber of commerce-sponsored
English when he moved to Connecticut advice on how to interact with students. junior leadership program. “There’s just so much she does, from
from the Dominican Republic at age 10. The “I’ve been able to get more out of them after providing food, shopping for students to get
following year he met Sileo; she was his that advice. ... She’s outstanding, she goes the Sileo also works with teen parents and back to school, that’s things that are out of
middle school guidance counselor who lived extra mile and is passionate about her pregnant teenagers through a program her pocket,” Berroa said. “She opens YMCA
around the corner and gave him his first job. students,” he said. called Even Start, which teaches parenting memberships for students and volunteered
During his freshman year at Torrington skills and encourages pregnant students to at the homeless shelter overnight.”
High School, his father told him they were Sileo’s cozy office is covered with stay in school and graduate.
moving to Massachusetts, but Berroa said he motivational posters and pictures of her Sileo also has made a habit of leaving
didn’t want to move; he had made friends family, students and dogs. One bookshelf is And she leads Lungs for Jenny, a group of kindness cards around Torrington, which
and felt at home in Torrington. He turned filled with sweatshirts, T-shirts, jeans and students who do community service include a few dollars and a motivational
for advice to Sileo, who offered to take him sneakers — “in case anyone needs projects in memory of a student who died message. She isn’t a stranger to paying for a
in, and his father consented. Later, Sileo and something,” Sileo explained. from a lung illness. The group has raised diner’s tab at a restaurant, either, her family
her husband became Berroa’s legal money for a number of causes, papered the says.
guardians. After school ends, Sileo’s day continues. school with motivational quotes and is
In addition to her part-time work as a planning to bring encouraging letters to a “She sees the good in everyone,” Berroa
“We became a family together,” Berroa Torrington Police Department matron sick middle school student. said.
said. “She gave me a home.”
Berroa, 23, admits he often acted up in
school, but Sileo would take him and other
students on trips and give them jobs after
school like shoveling snow or washing cars
to keep them focused.
“When I saw him I said, ‘Yeah, he’s a
troublemaker in school, but he’s got a huge
heart, he’s personable, wonderful and
lovable,’ ” said Sileo, 37.
Berroa is now a student at Northwestern
Community College studying criminal
justice. He wants to be a police officer and
hopes to help teenagers the way Sileo has
helped him.
“If it wasn’t for her pushing for me to go
to school, I would have either dropped out
or worked at a factory,” Berroa said. “She
told me to go to school, strive for greatness …
be successful.”
Berroa isn’t the only teenager to have
called Sileo’s downtown Torrington house
home. Sileo and her husband are licensed
foster parents and have provided a home to
nearly a dozen teenagers for time periods as
short as a weekend to as long as several
years.
Similarly, when their neighbor was
diagnosed with cancer, Sileo paid to make
sure the neighbors’ driveway would be
shoveled in the winter and the grass cut in
the summer.
Sileo, her husband and Berroa share their
home with two pit bulls and a cat. Both the
dogs are rescue animals, and one was
adopted the day before he would have been
euthanized, Sileo said.
For the past six years Sileo has been a
full-time guidance counselor at Torrington
High School. She said she works with about
170 students, whose needs range from
getting into college to battling homelessness.
“I’d think, ‘What a shame, why don’t people pick that up?’ Then I looked in
the mirror and said, ‘What’s wrong with you?’”
Gerald Blanchette
ONE-MAN ANTI-LITTER PATROL
Bristol Man Has Made His Rounds On Memorial Boulevard Nearly Every Day For 20 Years
By DON STACOM “My father would tell us on the weekend many of his mother’s relatives were already and noticing litter.
to pick up anything around the house. We living in the city. He taught seventh and “I’d think, ‘What a shame, why don’t
dstacom@courant.com had an earth driveway, and after a rain we’d eighth grade for 10 years, and, in 1968,
have to go out with wheelbarrows and bring became assistant principal at the Memorial people pick that up?’ Then I looked in the
B RISTOL — On a typical it all back up,” Blanchette says. Boulevard School. Not long afterward, he mirror and said, ‘What’s wrong with you?’ I
morning’s rounds, Gerald bought his home on Willcox, a little less than starting picking up what was down by the
Blanchette logs about 3.3 miles Blanchette didn’t want to follow his a half-mile away. river — it was a pleasant walk, a good deed
and gathers several bags’ worth father’s path as a carpenter with the New and I got in my exercise,” Blanchette says.
of debris. York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, “We had great custodians, but if I saw
and instead set out to become a teacher. He paper on the floor at school, I’d pick it up. I Since then, Blanchette has established a
Wearing a reflective safety vest, recalls having several excellent teachers at was assigned to the cafeteria at lunch hour, steady routine.
Blanchette strides up and down Memorial Assumption Prep in Worcester, and thinking and if kids dropped something, I’d have
Boulevard and a few nearby blocks, that teaching would be a better life than them clean it up,” he recalls. He changes into old sneakers and worn
gathering the previous day’s accumulation laboring on the railroad. work clothes after breakfast with friends at
of discarded cigarette packs, empty beer “I’m not a clean freak,” he says. “But the Crystal Diner. In the winter, he prefers
bottles and other litter. After serving in the Army in the Korean there’s a proper way to be in a place, and you lined pants, a sweater and a jacket. He carries
War, Blanchette used the G.I. Bill to attend don’t throw things on the floor.” gloves for whenever he’s lifting trash into one
He stops every few blocks to dump it all college and then landed a teaching job at the of the two worn fabric bags he carries on his
into one of the city’s trash barrels, then Jennings School in Bristol. His brother and When he retired in 1992, Blanchette rounds. The bright safety vest is always part of
resumes his unofficial cleanup patrol. began walking along the Pequabuck River the attire; traffic on Memorial Boulevard and
South Street is heavy in the morning and
Plenty of neighborhoods have good PATRICK RAYCRAFT | PRAYCRAFT@COURANT.COM drivers are often impatient.
Samaritans who occasionally tidy up, but
Blanchette is something more. He makes his FOR THE PAST 20 years, Gerry Blanchette, 86, has walked for about an hour and a half Empty beer cans and whiskey bottles turn
rounds nearly every day of the year, and he’s along Memorial Boulevard in Bristol every day to pick up litter. up along the route more days than not, he says.
been doing it for more than two decades. Scraps of paper, cardboard boxes, crumpled
cigarette packs and broken hubcaps are fairly
“Some days I miss, but I’m pretty good common, and Blanchette has had to carry the
about going out seven days a week. It’s my carcasses of chipmunks, squirrels and even a
exercise — and I get to do a good deed,” says raccoon or two to the nearest trash can. Tires
Blanchette, who looks and sounds far get propped up along a fence for a city crew to
younger than his 86 years. haul off, and abandoned shopping carts get
wheeled toward Main Street where they’ll be
“I retired at 62 and I’ve been doing this retrieved, he says.
since I was 63, maybe 64,” he says in the
kitchen of his Willcox Street home. He doesn’t go out during heavy snowfalls
or rainstorms, or when snow has covered
In his bright yellow vest and carrying two the sidewalks. Especially during the chilly
worn fabric bags, Blanchette has become a months, Blanchette keeps up a fast pace
sort of moving landmark on Memorial throughout his walk.
Boulevard and South Street.
“I’m not one to mosey. I take stairs two at
“Gerry’s very dedicated, he’s very highly a time,” he says. “I’ve always been fast.”
regarded. He sets a fine example of caring
about our neighborhood,” says Dennis New- From time to time, someone will join him
man, another Willcox Street homeowner. for a few cleanups, but they never stay for
very long, he says.
“Everybody knows him. You see him out
there going up and down the boulevard. It’s Blanchette says his faith as a Catholic is
great,” Mayor Ken Cockayne says. “It’s good part of what motivates him, along with the
to have volunteers get involved, and it’s good lessons from his childhood.
to see the pride he has in our city.”
“The church will show you right from
Blanchette credits his work ethic to his wrong,” he says. “I think a lot starts out at
upbringing in New Bedford, Mass., where he the home. That’s where you have to be
and his brothers were regularly assigned to taught.”
clean up around their home and yard.
