Soldiering on

A local heroine works for a healthier Egleston Square

Urban Eye by Sarah McNaught

In the space of five short minutes, an elderly woman comes in to use the restroom, a grandmother brings her two toddler grandchildren in out of the rain to play, and a young woman asks for help in sorting out a health problem.

Each one is made to feel welcome as she enters the Soldiers of Health headquarters, a triangular room on the first floor of a brick apartment building in Roxbury. And the person who makes them feel that way is Maria Contreras, a 50-year-old woman with radiant hazel eyes who treats everyone to come through the door as family.

Contreras, a mother of two from the Dominican Republic, recently won an award from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation as one of this year's 10 outstanding individuals working to bring health care to the poor. Selected from among more than 500 candidates nationwide, Contreras received $100,000 for her work to improve access to health and social services for more than 500 families in Egleston Square.

Contreras founded Soldiers of Health a little more than two years ago; the local volunteers who make up the organization go door to door inquiring about their neighbors' health needs, stand on street corners in the hope of deterring criminals from making Egleston Square their headquarters, and host job fairs and support groups for teens and parents in the area. The group's biggest concern is health: members encourage residents to seek medical attention for illnesses, vaccinations for children, and periodic screenings for diseases.

"I want to create a bridge between the four major medical centers in this area and the residents," Contreras says. "There are too many people who have gone years without seeing a doctor, or who don't follow up on illnesses they have."

Soldiers of Health began in Contreras's basement, in the West Walnut Park neighborhood of Egleston Square. She was sick of the violence that broke out nightly on her street corner. "It was the fear of violence that kept people inside their homes," she says, waving to an elderly woman who's standing in the doorway to get out of the rain. "So I started knocking on people's doors, asking them to help me and offering to help them with things like health problems."

The 23-year Egleston Square resident says her mother is her role model. "I grew up in a rural town in the Dominican Republic seeing my mom caring for our neighbors," says Contreras as she helps several volunteers set up long, rectangular tables for a lunch program the center provides to local children. "She was doing it with no money. So, for me, social work is something you do not for money but for the future of your community."

For a year, Contreras funded the program with her own money. In 1996, the national organizations Partners for Health and Partners Health Care underwrote the group's $150,000 annual budget, and Contreras leased the group's community room at 1865 Columbus Avenue, just a few blocks from Egleston Square. The walls are covered with pictures of weddings, wakes, and Halloween parties and other neighborhood events sponsored by the center. Just inside the entrance are a cozy gray couch and two recliner chairs.

"This place is owned by the people who come here," says Contreras, who chose to put workers' desks at the back of the room rather than the front because she thinks the arrangement makes people feel more comfortable when they walk in. "I want trust to be something that everyone feels when they come here." To further that trust, she makes sure that she or one of her volunteers speaks the native language of just about anyone who might use the center -- English, Spanish, even Hebrew.

Contreras's dedication does not stop at the boundaries of her own community. She is also helping more than 500 children in the Dominican Republic through a program called Antoncí, using $20,000 in award money that she received last year to provide one meal a day for the impoverished children of her hometown.

In just a few minutes, groups of neighborhood children will come through the door for their lunch. Contreras is distracted by a man whom she recognizes but doesn't know well. He wants to know why the men in the neighborhood don't have a weekly support group to discuss health and social issues the way the women do. Contreras takes him by the arm and leads him into a private conference room. As she closes the door behind her, she can be heard telling him: "I agree. Let me tell you what I am thinking . . . "

Sarah McNaught can be reached at smcnaught[a]phx.com.