Last March, Quennette “Queenie” Santos’s mother, Izora Kindell, succumbed to renal failure after a tough battle against kidney and lung cancer. She was 92.

Much like her daughter, who herself had been diagnosed with stage four bilateral breast cancer five years earlier, “Momma” wore a smile on her face throughout her treatment and kept the doors to her home in Harbor Point open to the children who passed through the Walter Denney Youth Center next door.

As she looked up through the sunlit canopy lining on Mt. Vernon Street three months after her mother’s passing, Queenie said she can still see her mother perched at the window of her apartment, waving to her on the sidewalk below. 

Santos’s own children had passed through the Denney in the center’s early days 30 years ago. Now, her grandchildren– eight of them, and one on the way – scramble through the building’s double doors daily to greet their grandmother, the center’s director of youth and development, at the top of the rubber-rimmed staircase. 

“When I go like this,” the 60-year-old Santos said, tapping her upper thigh twice, “I’m greeting, I’m tying shoes, I’m saying hello. It’s easy to ask a kid why they’re acting up, but when you look in their eyes and focus on them for those seconds, you remember why they’re here and why you’re here, too.

“They’re human. This is not just about taking kids through the door and babysitting. This is about supporting them and getting them ready for the next steps of life.”

Quenette 'Queenie' Santos is shown with a few of her club members. BGCD photo

The Boys and Girls Clubs of Dorchester took over management of the Denney Center in 2003. The seat atop the stairs has unquestionably belonged to Queenie Santos since the clubhouse’s inception, but as a teenager long before that, she was on the receiving end of youth services. A Columbia Point native, Santos said that the village that helped raise her was always an extension of her family. A lifelong parishioner at Greater Love Tabernacle, she said her childhood faith-leaders exemplified values she emulates in her work every day. 

“Loving and caring gives us the gift of life, and if we give people opportunities the same way God loves us and entrusts us with responsibility, we see initiative and resolve and peace amongst the youth,” she said. “My parents surrounded us with brothers and sisters, and together we took on the world. We’re stronger together.”

She added: “They gave us opportunities others thought we would never have here – for a place that had no hope, this was a very engaging place to be,” she said. “They made sure of it.” 

In her adolescence, Santos joined the student leadership board of Boston Against Drugs and watched as Action for Boston Community Development (ABCD) spread its roots on Columbia Point. When the now-defunct youth center on Brandon Street began to introduce youth services to the neighborhood, she made sure she was there for the daily head count. 

“My beginnings are out of this backyard,” she said. “Dorchester has always been in me; this is all I know. People often say, ‘Why do you work with kids? They’re so... fill-in-the-blank.’ But I remember who I was as a kid, growing up in the projects, someplace people used to say was dilapidated, one of the worst places in Boston. We were used to being told that if we were here, you were never going to be anything. But we’ve proved people wrong so many times.”

Santos has certainly done her part in helping generations of children and teens prove those nay-sayers wrong. Her move into early education was an unexpected pivot from her 15 years as an injury prevention specialist for the city of Boston, but Bob Scannell, president and CEO of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Dorchester told the Reporter he knew she was “special” from day one.

“I’ve had thousands of people work for me at the Boys and Girls Club, but we’re really blessed to have Queenie in our corner. She’s always smiling, and, throughout the years, she has impacted thousands of people,” he said. “She really does miracles.” 

Quenette ‘Queenie’ Santos, right, was shown with two of her longtime BGCD colleagues in this photo from 2018: Mike Joyce, left, and the late Bruce Seals, who passed away in 2020 after a battle with cancer. Photo courtesy BGCD

Every summer, the Denney, which normally operates as an afterschool program with occasional extended “twilight hours,” expands its programming to offer recreational activities to 140 kids – water play, park art, skateboarding, and two headline retreats, one to Maine and the other to Walt Disney World, which Santos has chaperoned year in and year out. 

But it’s her streak of selflessness that draws the highest praise. Scannell noted that Santos has previously taken in young girls without a home. Over the years, many children besides her own have called her “mom,” he said. “She’s never punching a time clock, working nine to five. She’s there first thing in the morning, and she’s the last person out the door.

He added: “She works for me, but, really, she works with me – she’s a friend to me, but really she’s a friend to everyone,” a sentiment affirmed by numerous accolades to Santos’s generous spirit, including the New England Women’s Leadership Award, recognition from TD Bank’s ‘Shirts Off Our Backs’ program, and, most of all, the trust of her community. 

On most days, Santos debriefs her staff, then greets the kids as they pour into the center before retreating into her office for the “adult work” that no one else does – coordinating with Santander Bank to bring financial literacy lessons to the Center, connecting with UMass Boston to schedule college tours and tutoring sessions, and budgeting resources and manpower in a year when help has been scarce. 

The onset of the pandemic in the winter of 2020 shut down the Denney clubhouse completely, and, when it reopened in June, the facility struggled to accommodate any more than 25 students while complying with state-mandated social distancing. The program continued without its customary swarm of summer volunteers, staffed by only four full-time employees, including Santos. 

But with restrictions easing a year later, there’s hope on the horizon. 

“Back in October,” said Santos, “we had kids tell us ‘I wish I could give you a hug,’ and it hurt to have to say ‘no’ to them. Now, we’re hearing laughter again, the kids are connecting with each other, and we’ve seen them re-experience the love and compassion that they missed.” 

Queenie Santos gets a hug from one of her youngsters. BGCD photo

The community at Harbor Point is also growing and diversifying, and Santos believes that’s a good thing – especially when the first cohort of kids she cared for at the Denney, her prodigals, return to the clubhouse with children of their own. 

“When I was growing up here, it wasn’t a very diverse community, but our community changed,” she said. “Now, people are fighting to get in, and, in a way, it feels good to know that people love something as much as I do.” 

While she would bargain for infinite time at the Boys and Girls Clubs of Boston if she could, with retirement just five years away, Santos said her experience with breast cancer and her remission have put things into perspective. She reached five years cancer-free in March, and she has every intention of seeing the milestone repeat itself once, twice, three times over. 

“I used to want to save the world, but I realized it doesn’t work that way. When two or three children come back and say, ‘Thank you, you helped me be myself without fear and rejection and stipulations,’ that’s the biggest thing for me,” she said. “That’s enough.”