New Haven Independent

The reenactment took place at a community awards ceremony Tuesday night, where the following exchange took place:

“Ladies and gentlemen, I ask you, what does John Prokop know about public works?”

“Not a whole lot,” replied John Prokop, “but I’m learning. Fast.”

“And whose number are you going to call, ladies and gentlemen, when you go over a patch of road that’s a little bumpy? John, tell the people your phone number.”

(Prokop rises ever so slightly in his chair but does not telll.) “And when it snows next winter and on the third day you’re still unable to get your car out of the driveway, whose number are you going to call? That’s right, ladies and gentlemen. John Prokop.”

This exchange was all part of the good-natured ribbing, a by turns toasting and roasting, of the city’s new director of public works by his boss. It took place during the Farnam Neighborhood House (FNH) awards gathering at Anthony’s Ocean View restaurant Tuesday night. Prokop, who is leaving his job as chief of security for the Housing Authority of New Haven — as well as his voluntary post on the Board of Education — to take over the beleaguered Public Works Department, was the recipient of FNH’s tenth annual Community Service Award.

Also receiving FNH’s 2007 Community Spirit Award was the staff of WTNH News, Channel 8, represented by Mary Lee Weber (standing next to Prokop), the director of marketing and community development, and Frank Glowski, facilities manager.

FNH was established 95 years ago on East Street (removed to Fillmore Street in the 1960s) in the heyday of the national settlement house movement as a recreational refuge for children of New Haven’s first large immigrant generation. FNH is today one of the city’s most venerable, highly utilized, and well-loved community centers. It serves about 3,500 kids from all over the city, hosts one of the city’s most popular basketball leagues, and Camp Farnam, in Durham. Camp Farnam has been the place where, for generations, kids of modest means get a chance to swim, breathe fresh country air, and develop new skills and character.

The awards, given over the last ten years, acknowledge one individual and one organization that enhance this spirit of service, enabling an old-fashioned value of mens sana in corpora sana (a sound mind in a sound body), as the ancient Romans used to say (they were, after all, Italians), to flourish in each new generation.

Prokop was cited for his service to people young and old, particularly in Fair Haven, through his work as a police officer, detective, active member of the Board of Education, and with a likely sense of future service in his new demanding role. The award was presented to him by its first recipient, in 1995, Doug MacDonald, a member of FNH’s board of directors. MacDonald was a top city cop at the time of his award.

MacDonald thanked Mayor DeStefano for launching community policing, and then mentioned that he and Prokop had shared a squad car for years. Most of what happened, he said, jokingly, would not be suitable for the telling.

The WTNH staff was honored, said FNH Executive Director Elizabeth Gambardella (pictured here with FNH past board chair and long-time supporter Rich Abbatiello), for their efforts, 100 strong, in launching the physical revitalization of facilities of the 70-acre camp, which is FNH’s summer headquarters.

The gathering was equal parts awards ceremony and reunion of the Farnam crowd, old and new, and very much in the family spirit. Rick Raffone, another FNH board member, recalled, for example, that Abbatiello had taught him how to swim at Camp Farnam when he was 6 years old. And what kind of teacher was Abbatiello? a reporter asked these two gentlemen, who are pictured at the top of this article reenacting the lessons.

“Well,” answered Raffone, “he showed you a few things with a stick and then just threw you in the water. Not really!”

In fact Abbatiello said that the camp, virtually built from the ground up by the sweat and skill of the parents of his generation, has been so meaningful in his life that after he retired, he got himself recertified as a swimming instructor, and renewed his swimming instruction at camp. “What could be better than working with these young people and teaching them something like that?

“Look, Farnam was so important to us, we all have stayed close together since. And it’s important today for the whole city. Every day during the school year about 27 school buses from every part of New Haven drop kids off at Farnam for our activities. And in the morning there’s a day care center, and at night until nine programs for teenagers. Every kid who walks in there is loved, and they don’t have to be Italian! I mean all the kids on the great Cross and Hillhouse basketball teams came through FNH’s Biddy Basketball tournaments and the leagues. I kid you not. It’s been a home away from home for generations, especially important for the kids around Dixwell since the closing of the Q House.”

Right on cue (no pun intended) these two gentlemen appeared, two more Farnam alumni: George Waldron on the right, FNH alumnus and today the Connecticut state chairman of the Workemen’s Compensation Commission. Next to him, and just beginning their pick-and-roll, Johnny Velleca reminisced about teaching Waldron and Abbatiello basketball at Camp Farnam. Velleca was a star on the Hillhouse state high school championship teams of 1952 and 1954.

And so it went, reminiscence and what Gambardella called the “regard and value for the whole human being” that inspire the new generation of FNH supporters and participants. Upcoming action at FNH includes the purchase and demoliton of a house at 170 Fillmore St. to expand the parking/drop off area for the scores of buses and parents delivering and retrieving kids, and the fashioning of a professionally run alumni association to tap the talents of nearly 100 years of Farnam.

So why, seriously speaking, concluded the mayor, had he chosen the night’s individual awardee, John Prokop, to join his administration? “For the exact same reasons,” he said, “that you are honoring John tonight on behalf of Farnam. For his great sense of decency and service, and because he’s a great manager. And, by the way, I am also here to honor all of you (even though you didn’t ask me to do it), because the one house that absolutely everyone in New Haven belongs to is Farnam House. It comes to you wherever you are, it gives you positive choices, and you will never know the huge differences it can make in a kid’s life.”