It Runs in the Family: Another Cronin Takes on Community Service in Westfield

It's like mother like son for one Westfield family when it comes to community service.

Dan Cronin, 14, son of Executive Director Sherry Cronin, has that same sense of responsibility that is shared by his mother and many others. For months, Dan has been volunteering his time at the historic Reeve House on Mountain Avenue, cleaning up graffiti around town and preparing Westfield for its last week.

“I like the feeling after you work on something and you clean it up and make it look better than it did before and you come back and say ‘That looks so much better because I worked on it,’” Dan said.

On Sunday, July 31, Dan spent about 15 hours—“pretty much from six in the morning to nine at night,” he said—doing last minute work around town to ensure Westfield looked its best in time for the arrival of the America in Bloom judges later that night.

He and his mom put together a list of last minute things to do and they tackled them line by line until it was time to pick up the judges.

“He was pretty awesome right before the judges got here…. When the list got put together, he got really focused,” Sherry said. Items included painting benches, removing graffiti and watering all the new plant baskets on lampposts and sidewalks.

Fighting graffiti has been Dan’s big project. He and his mom monitor the graffiti hotspots in Westfield and remove or paint over tags wherever possible. He’s seen enough of it that he can identify patterns in the graffiti, allowing him to link tags together as being done by the same vandal.

Graffiti has been rising since the beginning of the summer in Westfield, including taggings on buildings in the downtown business district and on street signs. In July, a in the North Cottage Place neighborhood and near were hit with many of the same taggings. Taggings have also appeared on street signs along Central Avenue, on the band stand , including a found in early August. Graffiti has also been on private property. 

Police have in conjunction with the graffiti and said the investigation remains ongoing. At the time of the arrest Police Captain David Wayman said that police would continue to arrest graffiti offenders but would not step up patrols, rather looking for public assistance on the case. Wayman also noted that graffiti is a seasonal crime, tied to summertime in Westfield. Police records from 2009 and 2010 show a rise in graffiti over both summers, with more reports in 2011.

The town is also offering a $5,000 reward for information leading the arrest of graffiti vandals.

Dan does not get paid for his work, though he continues to be recognized for the effort he puts forth on behalf of Westfield. He received an award last week for his help with America in Bloom
and his mom said that she’ll have to buy him a gift before school starts in September.

Neither Dan nor his mom think he will make a career out of community service, though they both expect his sense of responsibility to the community will stick with him forever. “Unless we wear him out,” Sherry joked.

Dan has expressed interest in studying engineering, possibly for the military. He said he likes old machinery, “anything with a motor.”