The Boston Globe: Beverly Man Wins Inaugural Peter J. Gomes Service Award

By: Amanda Burkey, Globe Correspondent

Andrew DeFranza isn’t one for the spotlight.

So when the Beverly resident’s US Representative, Seth Moulton, announced that DeFranza had won the inaugural Peter J. Gomes Service Award, so-named for the late Harvard pastor, he couldn’t help but emphasize the power of collective action.

“This is not just me,” said DeFranza, who works to bring affordable housing to North Shore communities. “This is a group effort, and I’m just a participant.”

DeFranza is the executive director of Harborlight Community Partners, a nonprofit organization that provides middle- and low-income housing on the North Shore.

“We’re building housing that only very few people at the very top of the income bracket can afford,” DeFranza said. “We’re not making housing that is accessible for the people who are doing these really critical jobs we all rely on.”

Harborlight uses municipal, state, and federal funding, to housing for 500 people in communities including Beverly, Ipswich, Peabody, and Marblehead, DeFranza said.

“It’s a little like alchemy,” DeFranza, originally from New Jersey, said of his job. “We’re trying to bend the laws of physics and nature to make something available that otherwise wouldn’t be.”

Moulton announced the creation of the Peter J. Gomes Service Award in August. In a statement, he called on his district to nominate someone who embodies “integrity, compassion, and commitment to community.”

The award’s namesake, Peter J. Gomes, mentored Moulton while the Democratic representative attended Harvard, Moulton said. Gomes died in 2011.

‘I’m proud to honor a resident of the Sixth District who exemplifies what it means to make a life, not just a living,' Moulton said in a statement.

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