Melinda Tuhus Photo
Johnny Dye (left) with Vin DiLauro.
“Johnny” lives on Columbus Avenue, near Columbus Auto Body Works, Inc. The teen is just one Hill beneficiary of the generosity and commitment of the man who won a neighborhood organization’s first-ever Community Award Wednesday evening.
Vin DiLauro regularly attends Hill South Management Team meetings. He’s both a local business owner (of the aforementioned auto body shop and towing company) and a local resident, at Harbor Landing in City Point.
So he was surprised when he got a slew of phone calls asking if he’d be at Wednesday night’s meeting.
It was only when he walked in and saw his entire family sitting in chairs at the Betsy Ross Arts Magnet School parish house that he got suspicious that something was up.
It was a joint meeting of the Hill North and Hill South management teams, before the summer break. Thirty-five people with there, and trays of chicken, pasta, rice and salad were waiting on tables (courtesy of Yale-New Haven Hospital) for folks to enjoy as the soon as the meeting adjourned. Besides the police reports, the only item on the agenda was the presentation of Hill South’s Community Award to DiLauro. Organizers said they give another only if a future recipient measures up to the first.
Hill South Chairman John Dye (on left in photo above) did the honors (with DiLauro on the right and Hill North Chairman Tony Dawson in the background). The award was “in appreciation of your dedication and support to improving our community and the lives of the residents in the Hill.”
That support’s come in big and small ways, in helping whole groups and in helping individuals. Dye said of DiLauro, “He’s been in the neighborhood a long time, and he’s an unsung hero. He sponsors things — the management team, the block watch. When we need something we call on him. He’s the first one to come and support anything we have in the neighborhood … With his busy schedule he attends management team meetings, while other people sit at home.”
DiLauro, characteristically, did not want to talk about his many contributions. Reached after the meeting, he told the story about “Johnny.” He didn’t want to use his real name in order to protect his privacy.
Johnny “was living with his aunt,” DiLauro said. “He was afraid to go out of the house. So I paid for some summer camp programs. I would make the arrangements.” And Johnny would go — and thrive. “I’m really proud of him, because this year he’s a freshman at Co-op Arts Magnet. I had a visit from his teacher, who said he opened himself up from the beginning to the end of the year. He used to be very quiet. Now he’s gotten involved in theater. She said all he talks about is going over to the [auto body] shop. We sponsor an amateur college and post-college baseball league —the West Haven Twilight League; that’s where I am right now. And he’s been my bat boy for years. I take him to the games, make sure he gets fed, and pay him for being a bat boy.”
“We also have another young man who lives across the street. We became very good friends with him and his family. He went to Career High; he’s very bright, very talented. My daughter took him around to visit colleges around the Northeast. He went to Quinnipiac University. He graduated and he’s now working at St. Raphael’s.”
That daughter, Bridget, also lives in the Hill and is the fourth generation of her family to run the family business. She’s pictured (second from right in the back row). Other family members are his wife, Mary Ellen, his daughter Rachael Richard (who was married last year in the BRAMS parish house) and his other daughter Jennifer Carroll and her son Brennan and daughter Spencer.
Spencer Carroll.
DiLauro said he grew up in West Haven but would stay with his grandmother in the Hill after attending CYO (Catholic Youth Organization) events in the very same building (since rehabbed) where Wednesday’s meeting took place . “This was the hottest place for CYO dances,” he recalled, with a twinkle in his eye.