[So, Mayor Baldelli-Hunt, could you start by telling us some of your
favorite Woonsocket memories?] Certainly! So one of my favorite Woonsocket
memories is McCarthy's department store. That was actually one of my favorite
places to shop, and also the talking Christmas tree was something that I
looked forward to as a young girl each year. But, McCarthy's department store was
the type of store where, no matter what you needed, you could go in and it was of
good quality, and I actually got my first credit card from McCarthy's department
store. So even though I don't even think I was of age, it was just a very
family-oriented type of store and they allowed me to have a credit line, so to
speak, and that was where I first learned how to manage money, I guess, by having my
own little charge card shopping there, and, believe it or not, I still have a
skirt from McCarthy's, yes, and I still wear it. [Wow! Good for you!] So, McCarthy's was something that
was exciting to me. Also, the memory of my childhood and living in a neighborhood
where you would just go out and play with your friends and everyone was safe
and your neighbors homes were safe havens, so if you're, you know, a young
girl or a young boy and you were out playing, you knew you didn't have to run
all the way back home to get a drink or go to the bathroom, so it was safe and it
was very...very family and neighborly type living. So that was very special to
me and I feel that children nowadays maybe don't particularly have that,
that situation, so it's unfortunate. Also, I do remember my grandparents were very much
a part of my life and my parents worked opposite shifts for a while, so my
grandparents were babysitters, so to speak, and I can remember coming to Main
Street with my grandparents and we would go to Jupiter's and we would go to
Grant's and we would go to Kornstein's. And again, you know, love the steps in
Kornstein's, going up and down. So I think it's like, I guess, you'd call my
my memories like the old days. That's what was special to me. [Okay. Could you tell us
why you like living in Woonsocket?] Well I like, first of all, I've been here my
whole life so I've been here for fifty five years and I just feel that
Woonsocket is a very special place. It is an urban community but it has a flair of
suburban living, and what I mean by that is the...the community aspect of it and
the relationships that you can make with people who live in Woonsocket and work
in Woonsocket and we're small enough to have that community feel and although
we're big enough to be considered an urban community. And I think...I think what
I find interesting about the city is the city has all the bones, so to speak, of
how to be a phenomenal, extraordinary place. It's just you, you almost need to
change the mindset of how people think about the community, because there is so
much here and it's like the bud of a flower and it's just waiting to bloom,
but we need enough people to recognize that it's a rose. It's not the
thorns, it's the rose. So I just feel it's...it's sort of like having faith in
the underdog, and I always like the underdog because I always think the
underdog has great drive and great potential, and that's what I feel with
the City of Woonsocket. [Okay. Any challenges about living in Woonsocket?]
I think the challenges from, like a personal perspective? Or, the challenges? [Maybe personal, and if you want to also address as Mayor, too]
So, personally speaking, I don't see particular challenges for me.
In fact, I find that, I have three sons, and I think that there was a benefit to
my children growing up in Woonsocket because my children were exposed,
like all the other children who have grown up in the city of Woonsocket,
they were exposed to diversity,
diversity on many levels from ethnicity to race so
Woonsocket is the real world and when you get out in the real world. So they weren't
sheltered like the other children are not sheltered in the city.
Oftentimes, in suburban communities where the majority of people are Caucasian,
it's a little bit of a shock when children head off to college and they
see it's a real big world out there. So, I think there is a benefit to children who
grow up in the city of Woonsocket because they're exposed to a lot of
walks of life, and it's a good foundation for them. So I wouldn't call it a
challenge, I would call it a benefit. From a professional standpoint, as far as
challenges within the city, I think and I firmly believe, that the biggest
challenge in the city is to try to explain to the people who live here that
you need to promote your community. It's, in life no matter what the situation is,
it's always easy to talk down about someone but you have to find it within
you to see the positive and take that positive and try to make it grow instead
instead of looking at the negative, it's
easy to be negative, it's, for some reason, it's not as easy to be positive but the
sooner people recognize and understand that it's that positive attitude that
will push our community forward, the faster we will get there and I'm
committed to continue to work to do that because Woonsocket's worth it.
[And finally, what would you change about Woonsocket going into the future? What
would you like to see change?] What I would like to see change is, I would like
to...I would be hopeful that there would be a bigger pool of people who would be
willing to come forward and stand by whoever the leaders are within the
community, and work with them to promote that vision of a better place, and we are
working to put the pieces in place to do that, but we cannot be so close-minded
and always be afraid to make a decision, a decision that is potentially out of
the ordinary. And, when people travel outside of the city, whether they're in
other communities in Rhode Island or they travel to another state for a
vacation, you always hear people come back and say
"Oh, my god, what a great place it was!" And they have, you know, this amenity or they
have this attraction. Well, they have that because they had the courage and the
strength to make that decision and move forward with that. And, we cannot continue
to remain elementary in our thinking. We really have to expand our vision and,
as the Mayor, I'm hopeful that I can find people who are willing to do that
in the future, for the sake of our children.
[Thank you very much.] Okay. You're welcome. [That was great.]
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