Feeling Neighborly

New London and Westerly may not be in the same state but, after young people in both cities were murdered, citizens of each shared the same state of shock and desire to do something to help their neighborhoods recover from the tragedy.

When a young man was stabbed to death in Westerly, R.I. over a love affair in 1992, the murder shook the city in the same way that the fatal stabbing of Matthew Chew in October rocked New London. For Lorain Ohio Simister and Daryl Justin Finizio, both of whom moved to New London from Westerly, Chew’s murder brought back the same sense of loss and the same desire to do something to help the community heal.

Their solution in 1993 was to create Neighbor Day as a way to bring people together. Held the Sunday before Memorial Day weekend, Finizio helped make the event a national holiday in 1994 when, as a 16-year-old representative of the American Legion’s Boys Nation, he presented the idea of Neighbor Day to President Bill Clinton.

Ohio said she’d been trying to interest New London City Council members in Neighbor Day since she moved to the city a few years ago without much success. After the Matthew Chew murder, however, Ohio and Finizio (who is running as a candidate for Mayor of New London) decided to take matters into their own hands and establish the first Neighbor Day in New London.

The event, held at on May 22, offered musical entertainment from seven different groups and a performance by the Shackles Dance Team of Norwich, and it drew people from New London and neighboring towns too.

David Sunshine of Lyme, sat making a piece for a commemorative quilt that Ohio will sew in honor of Matthew Chew. Sunshine, whose sons are in The Silver Hammer Band which performed in the morning, couldn’t help but remember another friend who had died a victim of murder in New London.

“I think it’s a great way to bring people together in the face of tragedy,” Sunshine said.  Violent crime, he noted, puts a black mark on New London but events such as this give people the opportunity to show who they really are and that they really care. 

“It’s about overlooking differences in each other,” said Maria Notte of New London, who helped organize the event. “It’s about hope.”

Although turnout could have been better, organizers’ enthusiasm for the event remained undiminished.  The first Neighbor Day in Westerly started with just a handful of people gathering on the steps of City Hall, they said, and has grown to become a city-sponsored event that this past Sunday, attracted hundreds of people.

Perhaps most importantly, Finizio noted, Neighbor Day is still being celebrated 19 years after the tragedy that sparked it and it keeps the memory of the boy who died alive. “There were a lot of responses in the immediate aftermath,” Finizio said. In Westerly, as in New London, he noted, there was an increase in police patrols and a surge in activities and services offered to young people.  “But over time, many of the responses diminished,” he said.  The teen center established in the wake of the Westerly murder has long since closed, Finizio observed, “but Neighbor Day continued and it grew.”

“We hope that this will keep the memory of Matthew Chew alive. We need to keep the energy that we have now so that the community response to this tragedy continues,” said Finizio. “My commitment, whether I’m in public office or just a private citizen, is to keep it going and make sure we have the same success with it here in New London.”