Ronald Carroll, Director of Community & Member Engagement at Mattapan Teen Center, has been working with BGCB since 2005. Prior to Ronald’s 2014 appointment as the Mattapan Club’s director, he served as the Director of the Leaders in Training Program at Camp Harbor View since 2009. Previously, he had five years of experience working with teens at the Yawkey Boys & Girls Club of Roxbury.
Ronald holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Afro-American studies with a Minor in Political Science from Howard University in Washington DC.
Ron passion for helping teens to become happy, healthy, successful young adults is evident when he speaks about the work at MTC:
“This is kind of a small space—7,000 square feet on a 13,000 square foot lot—but to me, it packs a big punch. Everything we do here has to be intentional, it has to be purposeful. So you can learn lessons here that do not necessarily come from the halls of academia. We want to be a place that educates you as a human being. That’s the focus around here. It’s about being decent human beings first.
In an environment like this, and particularly in Mattapan, a program like this is a beacon. There is an abundance of love, and a sense of community in this place. The young people really vote with their feet and they love this space we’re in. And that’s what this club has become, so I want that love and that sense of community, that sense of pride in oneself and that village that raises a child to happen so abundantly within our walls that it’s just bursting at the seams and it can’t be contained any more where it naturally spews out in the street.”
