Former Lt. Gov. Polito relishes family time, watching kids play sports

WORCESTER - After eight years in office as lieutenant governor, traveling around the state to visit all 351 Massachusetts municipalities, Karyn Polito has plans to be a sideline mom through the fall, watching her children play sports.

“I don’t plan on missing any games,” said Polito at a luncheon at the Jewish Federation of Central Massachusetts Wednesday, where she accepted the Righteous Gentile Humanitarian Award for her support and promotion of the state’s diverse communities while she was in office.

Her daughter, a senior at St. Mark’s School in Southborough, plays field hockey, and her son, a sophomore at Bowdoin College in Maine, plays football. She noted that she has already lost enough opportunities to cheer them on while she was in office and is loath to let another one pass.

Looking forward to family time

“I’m having a 'teenage moon,'” Polito said, referring to the special time she now has, with a more balanced work and private life, to spend with her children and with her husband, Steve Rodolakis.

In the eight months since she walked out the front door of the Statehouse on Beacon Hill, Polito has focused on her family and the family business, a real estate and construction firm based in Shrewsbury. She has also established herself as an adviser on public policy for Massachusetts businesses including Clean Harbors (pollution control), Berkshire Bank, Andover Companies (insurance) and Firefly Health (virtual medical primary care).

“I’m focused on work now. I’m happy with the balance,” Polito said. “I had a full life of service. It was a blessing and an honor to serve my home area and the commonwealth of Massachusetts.”

As she spoke with friends and supporters at the Worcester Jewish Community Center on Salisbury Street, Polito discussed the importance of the Righteous Gentile Humanitarian Award, conferred upon her by the Tapper Charitable Foundation.

“Antisemitism and hate Is too prevalent,” Polito said.

In his remarks, Steven Schimmel, executive director of the federation, said the award is based on history. It serves to honor those gentiles, non-Jewish peoples, who protect and promote the Jewish community, much like those gentiles who protected and saved the Jews during World War II from the Nazi regime.

“The irony of doing the right thing is that it is both easy and difficult,” Schimmel said.

Arranged funding to strengthen religious communities

The Jewish community is honoring Polito for her work with former Gov. Charlie Baker to secure funding to strengthen the state’s faith-based community and their structures. The funding was allocated to “harden” the buildings and provide the technology to secure them. It was particularly relevant in the wake of attacks on religious communities, most particularly the massacre in 2018 at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh.

“The Jewish community says, 'Thank you,'” Schimmel said. “We recognize your efforts that went above and beyond the Jewish community to embrace all ethnics and religious communities in the commonwealth.”

The award also has a financial component. The foundation attaches a $10,000 monetary award to the plaque, a sum that has in the past been given as a charitable contribution, first by last year’s recipient, then-Worcester Police Chief Steven Sargent.

Polito has split her award, with half to UMass Memorial Health Foundation as a way of thanking the medical community for its support during the COVID-19 pandemic. The other half Polito dedicated to the Wonderfund of Massachusetts, a group that supports children in foster care, supplying loaded backpacks, luggage and Christmas gifts to youngsters who have become wards of the state.

“These are the kinds of things we take for granted,” Polito said. The Wonderfund, a project of former first lady Lauren Baker, pays for backpacks, school supplies, duffle bags and after-school and athletic fees. Some 50,000 children statewide are in the foster system at any given time, with some 8,000 in Central Massachusetts.

New year with approach of Rosh Hashana

Polito thanked Rabbi Levi Liberow for sounding the shofar and blowing in the coming new year. Rosh Hashana, the holiday marking the Jewish new year, starts Sept. 15. She hopes the new year can be one of building unity and common ground between communities and building bridges in Massachusetts, the country and the rest of the world.

As she discussed her life, Polito said she hopes more people opt for public service, run for local positions or even volunteer with some of the boards and commissions that run Massachusetts municipalities.

”People have to take up the challenges to make their home communities better,” Polito said.

As lieutenant governor, Polito took over leadership of the state’s community development efforts, focusing on building bridges between municipalities and the state government. She visited every municipality in the state, going to places she said “no one had visited before.” She traveled from Mount Washington to the Berkshires and even visited little Gosnold with its 70 year-round residents in Buzzards Bay, looking for ways to help improve them.

“Ways to make them better, safer, with better schools, places where residents could age in place, own a business, raise a family,” Polito said. Her work, she believes, made Massachusetts that much stronger.

The former politician is also busy promoting the “Blue Square” movement launched by Patriots owner Robert Kraft in March to “stand up to Jewish hate.”

While she misses some of the trappings of the office and visiting Massachusetts’ municipalities, she does not miss the long commute home.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Family & quiet time on agenda for former Massachusetts Lt. Gov Polito