Boston Globe, MA
Nov 26 2006
Powered by goodwill
Quincy man honors brother’s legacy of giving with bike-a-thon
fund-raiser
By Rich Fahey, Globe Correspondent | November 26, 2006
QUINCY — Richard Boyajian says that when he thinks about the smiling
faces of the children, it reminds him of his brother. And that
inspires him to pedal faster.
Each Memorial Day weekend, Boyajian , 67, takes off with about a
dozen friends on a 25-mile bike-a-thon from Cambridge to Lexington
and back to raise money for the Nish Boyajian Memorial Foundation,
which he founded in the name of his brother, Harold Nishan Boyajian ,
who died of cancer in 1995. He uses the funds raised to improve
school playgrounds in Armenia, the country his father, Haig, left in
1910. (Armenia, a former Soviet republic, regained its independence
in 1991.)
Boyajian recently returned from his sixth trip to Armenia, but this
time with a heavy heart: His mother, Mary, died at age 92, two days
before he arrived home on Sept. 30. Boyajian had gotten word during
his trip that she had fallen ill, but she appeared to be improving
and in no immediate danger when she suddenly took a turn for the
worse.
He came home, as he always did, with a souvenir from Armenia for his
mother, a small cap in Armenian colors. It went with her when she was
buried.
"My mother never could believe what we did to keep Nish’s memory
alive," Boyajian said recently, remembering the pride his mother had
in his goodwill missions to his father’s homeland. Haig Boyajian ,
who died in 1978, raised his family in the warmth of Watertown’s
large Armenian-American community; Mary was born in Fitchburg.
On his latest trip, Boyajian brought sports and playground equipment
for seven schools in Armenia, as well as fully equipped first aid
kits, working in conjunction with the Mirak Foundation.
"I think Nish would be happy with what I’m doing," he said.
Nish Boyajian ran a print and office supplies firm in Waltham. He was
president of the Men’s Club at St. James Armenian Church in Watertown
and the Watertown Rotary Club, and served on the board of the
Watertown Boys Club, among his many endeavors.
"He was a very charitable man and well-known in the Armenian
community," said Boyajian , who also tried to find ways to give back,
as his brother was doing. He helped raise money for Armenian
earthquake victims in 1988, and rode his bike each year to raise
funds to fight diabetes, from which he and several other family
members suffer.
The Nish Boyajian Memorial Foundation began in 1995, when Boyajian
was driving his brother to a hospital in Philadelphia for
experimental cancer treatments and found himself wishing he and other
family members had something to do as they waited in the lounge while
Nish was undergoing the treatments.
"There was no real recreational area you could go to, to take your
mind off what was happening," he said.
After his brother’s death that year, Boyajian made a solo 70-mile
bike ride in Nish’s name, raising enough money to buy two treadmills.
He donated one to the cancer ward of the hospital where Nish had been
treated, to give patients and family members something to do while
passing time. He lent the other to Nish’s son, Richard, who was
recovering from a bone marrow transplant for leukemia, and later
donated the machine to Regina Cleri, the home for retired priests in
Boston’s West End, where he has been cutting the priests’ hair for
many years.
He raises much of his foundation’s funds today from per-mile pledges
or flat contributions from longtime customers at his Boston Brahmin
Hair Salon on Portland Street, near North Station in Boston. It
remains a modest nonprofit, pulling in about $7,000 each year from
the bike-a-thons.
Boyajian had his real epiphany for the foundation’s work in 2000, in
a chance meeting with a group of young Armenians who had come to the
Boston area through an exchange program between Cambridge and its
Armenian sister city of Yerevan, under the auspices of the US Agency
for International Development. Boyajian entertained the visitors,
taking them to hockey games, hosting a cookout, and organizing
outings to nearby Wollaston Beach.
The Rev. Joanne Hartunian, youth exchange program director for the
Cambridge Yerevan Sister City Association, later asked Boyajian
whether he would chaperone a group of local students traveling to
Armenia that year. That opportunity would lead to his embracing his
Armenian heritage and beginning the annual trips with the proceeds
from his fund-raisers, and to hosting various Armenian groups
traveling to this country.
Many friends and customers have been supportive, he says, both with
the fund-raisers and with the visitors. Even the Boston Bruins have
lent a hand. "The Bruins and Nate Greenberg" — longtime assistant to
former Bruins president Harry Sinden — "have been great," he said.
"They’ve opened their doors to many of my Armenian guests."
Boyajian has studied Armenia’s history and learned enough of the
language to make himself understood on his visits. But his new
friends over there have helped the missions as well.
Businessman Arthur Hovsepyan of Magnon Manufacturing, for example,
has made the money Boyajian raised go a bit further. He manufactured
the chairs and tables for the schools in Zeytoun and the playground
equipment for the schools in Gyumri, allowing Boyajian to cut out the
middleman.
Boyajian knows he can’t ride his bike forever. He is hoping that the
next generation — perhaps his nephew Richard, whose leukemia has
been in remission for several years — will pick up and continue the
cause, in memory of Nish.