Allan Appel Photo
Thomas Cama remembered looking out the window of the Ezekiel Cheever School to watch the new Farnam being built.
Thomas Cama grew up at Poplar and Pine in Fair Haven in an apartment with only an old clawfoot tub. When he was a third-grader in 1963, the new building of Farnam Neighborhood House opened. Cama was there to play basketball and afterwards take the first shower of his young life.
Almost 50 years after that shower he joined a festive and sentimental Farnam crowd at Anthony’s Ocean View restaurant Thursday evening to share basketball and other memories and to celebrate the city’s oldest neighborhood center still going strong since its founding on Franklin Street back in 1899.
Farnam’s programs include a pre-school, a 72-acre camp in Durham, and a basketball program that serves 360 kids.
The occasion Thursday night was Farnam’s annual fundraising dinner. It drew more than 200 people. It featured the presentation of Farnam’s community service award to Mayor John DeStefano and a community spirit award to Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield. In presenting the mayor’s award, Farnam Board President Everett Nichols said, “He’s like our Mariano Rivera, our relief pitcher. We call him. He never says ‘You’ll get it’ but [rather] ‘I’ll work on it.’”
Liz Gambardella with former Alderman Joey Rodriguez, who presented a citation from U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal.
Executive Director Liz Gambardella said she hopes the dinner will have raised as much as $25,000. Attending among others were schools Superintendent Reggie Mayo and State Rep. Roland Lemar.
Cama grew up to become a financial analyst. He now sits on the City Employees’ Retirement Fund board. He offered another memory Thursday night: Back in the day Fair Haven was a lot like Brooklyn, he said. Groups of kids would hang out on the corners. “The cops would say ‘Go home, get out of here. ’ Where you supposed to go? We went to Farnam House.”