The Isabella Chen Community Center opens on a warm Saturday morning in July.
The building stands on a corner lot in Dorchester, sunlight catching the glass façade, the name etched across the entrance in understated steel letters.
Isabella Chen Community Center
A Chen–Valerio Foundation Initiative
It still feels surreal seeing my name on a building.
“I told you you’d hate the spotlight,” Marcus murmurs as we stand just inside the doors, waiting for the ribbon-cutting to begin.
“I don’t hate it,” I say, smoothing down my dress for the fifth time. “I just feel like it’s too much.”
“It’s not too much. It’s earned.”
Zara rolls her eyes behind us.
“She’s been pacing since seven,” she tells Marcus. “It’s not earned, it’s anxiety.”
“I am not pacing.”
“You are aggressively organizing.”
