Leicester’s Small but Mighty Army of Volunteers Aims to Grow Engagement With Community Heart & Soul
Stepping up for your community is baked into Leicester’s history.
In 1774, Leicester resident Colonel William Henshaw helped coin the term “minutemen,” calling for citizens “ready to march upon a minute’s notice.” Now, a new generation of Leicester residents is carrying that same spirit forward.
Today, the central Massachusetts town has a small army of volunteers dedicated to making it “a place where people want to live, work, learn, and play.” As they embark on their Community Heart & Soul journey, this small army is hoping to grow its ranks.
Leicester, (pop.11,000) balances rural beauty with growing opportunity. Residents describe a town of forests, lakes, trails, and historic buildings — a place where people can still live “two minutes from a major thoroughfare” while enjoying old farmland and small-town life.
There’s a historic town common with a gazebo that hosts concerts in the summer, a library in a renovated Classical Revival building dating back to 1896, and town parks that have been enjoyed by generations.
While steeped in early American history, Leicester is not stuck in the past. Here, historic buildings are not just preserved but reused for modern life. The Swan Tavern, for example, dates back to 1768 and is the oldest structure on the town common. It has been a tavern, a private home, part of a college and temporarily housed the library. Now it is used by the historical commission as a museum, community center and event space.
Leicester is the kind of place where people who were born and went to school there call themselves “townies.” Though as a suburb of the city of Worcester, Leicester has seen a shift in demographics and with it a change in housing and other needs.
U.S. Census data for Leicester shows growth has slowed, but the population is growing older and more diverse. Data also shows the gap between household income and housing costs continues to widen. The town documented these and other evolving needs in public infrastructure and services in a Master Plan in 2025.
But as with any municipal plan, it runs the risk of gathering dust unless there are people to enact its suggestions.
Community Heart & Soul arrived at a moment when residents were already thinking about how to strengthen community ties. The Heart & Soul program offered them a framework for welcoming new voices and growing civic participation.
Leading the Community Heart & Soul effort are volunteers from C.A.R.E. Leicester — Community Advocates for Resource Engagement. During the pandemic, residents formed C.A.R.E. Leicester to help distribute federal relief funding. After distributing $330,000 to struggling organizations and businesses, committee members felt they had more to contribute.
“We kept going after that because we had such a good group of people on the committee. We all felt like it was the best committee we’ve ever been on,” said Linda Colby, a lifelong Leicester resident and retired educator.
Jonathan Cohen, Vice President of Community Impact at the Greater Worcester Community Foundation, invited Leicester to join a Community Heart & Soul pilot program because of the strong social infrastructure he saw there.
“You have this group of longtime, really committed leaders who believe in the town. And so that just seems like a formula for potential success and Community Heart & Soul becomes another tool that can help them do that even better,” Cohen said.
For Rose Wolanski, the Community Heart & Soul mission aligned perfectly with the work she and others were already doing in Leicester.
“Our attitude is: Come up with some ideas of how to make Leicester better, listen to people and then take action,” Wolanski said. “Community Heart & Soul, I feel, has that same attitude.”
Leicester’s approach reflects a kind of Yankee ingenuity: residents stepping up, getting creative with the assets they have, and taking action.
Perhaps the greatest example of Leicester’s make-do and make-it-happen approach is the conversion of a defunct college campus into the town’s public high school.
Rather than pursuing costly new construction, Leicester chose to adapt the former Becker College campus into a new high school and expanded vocational education center.
The town bought the Becker College campus, consisting of 19 buildings and 44 acres, for about $18 million. After an assessment of the property, the town decided to sell some of the buildings and repurpose the rest. Now the town enjoys a modernized high school and vocational education that attracts students from other towns.
On a recent tour of town, Paul Fontaine, a C.A.R.E. Leicester member and lifelong resident, says the vocational school and repurposed campus are a point of pride among residents. The redevelopment has also returned foot traffic to the area, revitalizing the town common and benefiting area businesses.
“Right now, that’s the big gem we actually have. We have students coming from other towns that pay us to come to this program,” Fontaine said.
With this can-do attitude, Leicester has flown through Phase One of Community Heart & Soul.
“I think they’re really poised to take off and to redefine themselves as a post-industrial community,” said Community Heart & Soul Coach Catherine Ingraham. “They have a really solid group of volunteers.”
Wolanski, a retired physical therapist and lifelong Leicester resident, said the process has already begun shifting the tone of public conversation in town. After years of seeing negativity in online discourse, she is seeing a more hopeful and collaborative spirit.
For Cheryl Cooney, a retired speech pathologist, business owner, and co-founder of the community-focused nonprofit Deja New, Heart & Soul represents a chance to engage residents who haven’t been involved before.
“I’m hoping that this just blows up,” Cooney said. “I want to see people talking about it.”
And people are talking about it. At one of the last events before the start of Phase Two, the Leicester Heart & Soul team invited local leaders and civically active residents to a dinner and discussion about the town’s strengths and needs. Attendees wrote on sticky notes what they love about Leicester, what they want to see improved, what they want to see in the future and how communication could be improved. There were more than 160 responses.
“We’re so pleased about their enthusiasm for Community Heart & Soul, which is really their enthusiasm about their town and seeing this as a vehicle to advance their dreams and hopes for the community that they live in,” Jonathan Cohen said of the volunteers leading Leicester’s Heart & Soul process.
The group has also been intentional about reaching people where they already gather. Volunteers have attended a community baby shower, school events, festivals, and library programs to introduce people to Community Heart & Soul.
When residents are asked what matters most about Leicester, common themes are a love of the town’s natural beauty, appreciation for town events, devotion to the town library and pride in the school system.
Suggested improvements include beautification of town land, preserving historic and cultural assets, and growing volunteer opportunities for people of all ages.
Phase Two, Community Heart & Soul’s story gathering phase, will dive deeper into what residents say matters most and what they want to see in Leicester’s future.
“This is something that’s growing and contagious and we want to see that spread. I think that’s what Community Heart & Soul is all about: Helping to make the community better and stronger,” Fontaine said.
The Greater Worcester Community Foundation has partnered with Community Heart & Soul to bring the resident-driven process to central Massachusetts. Leicester and North Brookfield are the first two towns to participate, with more to follow.
“As they go through the Community Heart & Soul process, the participating Worcester County towns are already talking to and supporting each other,” Cohen said. Leaders from Leicester and North Brookfield have connected with each other and with the team from Winchendon in Northern Worcester County — the first Massachusetts town to adopt Community Heart & Soul in 2021.
Linda Colby sees volunteerism as one of the town’s greatest assets. She hopes Community Heart & Soul will encourage more residents to get involved in ways that fit their interests and schedules.
“What I love about Leicester the most is that we have some great people in town and they do a lot of great things. You know, they volunteer. They help no matter what. You can reach out to people in this town and they will give, give, give. I just think we’re so lucky to have that,” Colby said.
In many ways, Leicester’s embrace of Community Heart & Soul echoes a longstanding tradition of neighbors answering the call to serve their community. Leicester’s modern minutemen are not waiting for someone else to shape the town’s future. They are already building it together.
