Leominster parishioner named ‘Citizen of the Year’

By Tanya Connor
The Catholic Free Press

LEOMINSTER – Two longtime volunteers received Leominster’s Citizen of the Year Award Saturday.

While the award focused on the volunteers’ service to the city, one is also known for serving her parish, and the other is connected with a parish out of town.

Barbara E. LeBlanc, who said she’s been a lector and eucharistic minister at St. Leo Parish since 1994, and Thomas Piper, who affiliated himself with St. Edward the Confessor Parish in Westminster, each received the Citizen of the Year award Saturday at Leominster’s Starburst, an annual music festival with fireworks, held at Doyle Field.

Mayor Dean J. Mazzarella, joined by Massachusetts Rep. Natalie M. Higgins, presented the awards from the city and citations from the Massachusetts Statehouse.

Mrs. LeBlanc and Mr. Piper were chosen mainly because of their years of volunteering for Leominster’s Emergency Management, which supports first responders in various ways, according to fellow volunteer Nancy Koski, co-chairwoman of the Citizen of the Year Committee.

She said Mrs. LeBlanc “led the canteen unit ... which serves food to firefighters and whoever is on the scene” during an emergency and “Tom is in charge of our rescue unit,” which helps rescue people in danger, among other services.

“I’m just proud to be associated with them and call them friends,” she said. “They’re what we call hidden gems in our city.”

“It’s just recognition of 41 years” of volunteering with Emergency Management, once called Civil Defense, said Mr. Piper. He said he does other volunteer work for the city, but usually through Emer-gency Management.

“I’m just so honored,” Mrs. LeBlanc told The Catholic Free Press. “I’m here for the people of Leominster and for the surrounding community.” She said she volunteered with Emergency Management for 26 ½ years, and is now “retired” from that. Her husband, Robert E. LeBlanc, and their children, Erik and Nicole LeBlanc, also volunteered there. (Now she volunteers at Nashua River Watershed Association in Groton.)

Mrs. LeBlanc recalled serving with Mr. Piper in 1999 at the Worcester Cold Storage and Warehouse Co. fire, in which six firefighters died.

“Tommy and I were there for the whole nine days,” serving food and offering a listening ear to first responders, she said.

“I’ve known Barbara since she was sworn in” as an Emergency Management volunteer, said Dorothy LeBlanc, (no relation), retired secretary of the department. “Barbara was by far one of our most enthusiastic members, always willing to respond to the need.

“Tom was a very dedicated volunteer. He was one of our divers,” once retrieving for the police a weapon a thief had thrown into a pond. “He was also very talented mechanically,” working on Emergency Management vehicles, “an all-round good citizen of the community.”
Father William E. Champlin, St. Leo’s pastor, said Mrs. LeBlanc is very active there, “always ... willing to help,” often volunteering to distribute Communion at funerals.

Paula Marcoux, a former classmate of Mrs. LeBlanc’s, said the awardee is her daughter’s godmother and “Auntie Barbara” to the whole family.

“She’s just so good hearted,” Mrs. Marcoux said. “We need a lot more people like that.”
Diane Sanabria, co-chairwoman of the Citizen of the Year Committee, a former St. Leo’s parishioner and a present member of Holy Family of Nazareth Parish, said she sometimes saw Mrs. LeBlanc at St. Leo’s.

“She got involved in a lot” of activities, Mrs. Sanabria said of her Leominster High School classmate, who, even as a student, helped others with whatever they needed.

“This award is really designed for people like her .. [who] love their community and love the people in it,” she said. Such people don’t volunteer in order to get an award, but “because it’s the right thing to do.”

Mrs. Sanabria said Leominster has been giving Citizen of the Year awards since 1982, when it recognized Louis Charpentier, now deceased, the St. Cecilia parishioner who carved his parish’s crucifix, among other many other works of art.

Community members nominate potential awardees, and now a committee of former award recipients annually chooses the year’s recipients, she said.