• Gifts of Cash: The CARES Act allows taxpayers who take the standard deduction to make up to $300 of charitable contributions to qualified charities. Itemizers can deduct up to 100% of adjusted gross income. As of now, this only applies to 2020.
• Stock or Securities: Make a gift of stock or securities to Agassiz Village and avoid capital gains tax on the appreciation of your stock. Please call Lisa Carter, Executive Director, at 781-860-0200 ext.1006 to make your stock gift.
• Individual Retirement Account: If you or a family member are 70½ or older with an individual retirement account (IRA), you can make a tax-free gift to Agassiz Village directly from your IRA. This is called a qualified charitable distribution. Through the SECURE Act you can transfer any amount up to $100,000 per year directly to a qualified charitable organization without paying income tax on the distribution.
• Donor-Advised Funds: Give through your donor-advised fund to maximize your impact. Your fund sponsor handles all record-keeping, disbursements, and tax receipts.

WILD ABOUT HARRY


HARRY E. BURROUGHS
Founder, Burroughs Newsboys Foundation
Founder, Agassiz Village
The story of Agassiz Village is truly the story of our founder, Harry E. Burroughs. Many people know the basic history of Harry and Agassiz: Harry left Russia and stowed away on a boat to America. He became a newsboy in Boston. The support of the newsboy community and his customers provided him with the opportunity to attend Suffolk University. He obtained a law degree and became a successful attorney. He opened the Burroughs Newsboys Foundation and later, Agassiz Village.
But there is so much more to the story and to this remarkable man. Lost to the pages of time are the courage, perseverance, and wavering love for his family, Boston community, adopted country, and most especially, the marginalized children like he had once been.
Nowhere is this love more evident than in his writing. Our thanks to the Burroughs family for allowing us to share excerpts from Harry's acclaimed book, Boys in Men's Shoes, which provides a greater understanding of why he committed his life to helping impoverished children and how Agassiz Village actually came to be.

Boys in Men’s Shoes: A World of Working Children was published in 1944. The book was dedicated to Mr. & Mrs. Maximilian Agassiz “in gratitude for their friendship, help, and guidance. By their deeds they have bridged the gulf between plenty and need. Throughout the ages, love has been the preserver of mankind. Blessed is the nation whose wealth is in the hands of those who use it for the less fortunate.”
Harry added the following note:
“While this Manuscript was being finished Maximilan Agassiz passed away, on September 21, 1943. Since I wish him to live in this book, I have closed the chapters and the above Dedication without alluding to his departure. He was a kind, understanding man. His joy was in helping others. He deserves to live.”
Harry Burroughs Biography
April 15, 1891
Hersh Baraznik is born in the village of Kashoffka, then a part of the Russian Empire. It is located at the junction of the rivers Styr and Oser and bordered by thick pine forests. His father, known as “Nathan the Wise,” and his mother, called “Hannah the Saint” were already the parents of a son, Samuel, and daughter, Bessie. Five other children had died during a typhoid epidemic a few years before Hersh’s birth. The epidemic plunged the family into poverty and Nathan was forced to work in the forest stripping trees and selling the bark. On the day of Hersh’s birth, Nathan found 100 rubles in a hollow stump. He preceded to use the money to go to America to make his fortune. He returned a wealthy man.
1900
After the death of his beloved mother and following run-ins with his new stepmother, Hersh left home and apprenticed himself to a merchant who brought him to a brush factory in Sevastopol. While there he saw Czar Nicholas II. Hersh said the experience stayed with him his entire life as he felt a tremendous letdown upon seeing the Czar: “The man whose name carried terror and authority to every corner of the land . . . was a timid little man . . . His step and bearing were nervous, apprehensive.”
1902
A second incident left an indelible mark on Hersh more powerful than witnessing the Czar: a pogrom in Sevastopol that resulted in the death of many. “The air was leaden with tension as hooligans were brought into town. I tramped throughout the city and was amazed to discover that as preparations began for what we all knew was coming—and while police and the imperial army looked the other way—non-Jewish neighborhoods casually continued with everyday activities.” He was to witness a fellow Jewish brush maker club a rioter to death. He left Russia soon after, never returning to Kashoffka, which was obliterated from the map in later wars.
1903
Hersh travels across Europe with the goal of making it to the United States. As he travels through countries, he sells newspapers to survive. Not long after arriving in England, he stows away on a ship headed for America.
December 1903
Twelve-year-old Hersh arrives in Portland, Maine. Unable to speak English, penniless, and unable to find work, he decides to head to Boston, where he knows other residents of Kashoffka have settled. His only belongings are a fine Russian fur coat, hat, and shoes made by the shoemaker to Czar Nicholas II.
1904
Hersh begins selling newspapers on Washington Street in front of the old Boston Theatre in Beacon Hill. On his first day he is harassed by older newsboys, who call him a “greenhorn” and make fun of his clothing. One newsboy attacks him, punching him in the eye. “My initiation into the business was not pleasant. The black eye I got on the first day stayed with me for three weeks, and the bewilderment of it all lasted much longer.” Eventually, he establishes a corner at the intersection of Bowdoin and Derne streets. It was on this corner that he met then-Governor Curtis Guild, who, because he refused a dollar tip, gave Hersh the right to sell papers in the State House.
1906
Hersh buys the right from another newsboy to sell papers at Filene’s store located off Winter Palace. Although the Filenes family gave him a letter appointing him their official newsboy, Hersh was driven off by a Boston beat cop who threatened to arrest him. Believing he was in the right, Hersh went to see John F. Fitzgerald, the mayor of Boston (and the grandfather of President John F. Kennedy), who ordered the officer transferred.
1907
Hersh is elected by his fellow newsboys to arbitrate disputes regarding rights to sell papers at subway entrances. An account of this is published in the local newspapers and Hersh becomes well known among the newsboys of Boston.
1908
Hersh joins a newsboys club established by James J. Storrow, a distinguished citizen of Boston (after whom Storrow Drive is named). He writes an article for the club newspaper, “The Daily Lessons of a Newsboy.”
1911
Hersh, who has changed his name to Harry Burroughs, wins a scholarship to Suffolk Law School through a contest conducted by the Boston Traveler. Because he had won the respect of the newsboys when he arbitrated their quarrels, they vote for him and encourage their friends and customers to do the same. Harry’s own customers voted for him as well. Harry completes the four-year course in two years.
1912
Harry passes the Massachusetts bar exam and in time establishes a very successful practice. Newsboys send their parents to him, and he represents many of his former associates, including the bully who had given him a black eye on his first day as a newsboy. When he tries cases in court, his best audiences are newsboys. “Sometimes I would catch a twinkle in the judge’s eye as he rebuked them for applauding me.”
1917-1918
Harry serves in World War I for his adopted country.
1921
After nine years of successful law practice, Harry attempts to open a foundation for newsboys but “as often happens when charitably inclined persons know nothing about the conditions they are proposing to remedy, the interest died.”
June 1927
Harry receives a call from friend Eddie Keevin, who informs him that Upton Sinclair is in Boston gathering material about the terrible conditions in which newsboys live. Sinclair was a writer known for documenting and criticizing social and economic conditions of the early twentieth century, with his best-known work, The Jungle, exposing the meatpacking industry in Chicago. Harry calls Sinclair and tells him that by the time his book can be published, a newsboy foundation will be in existence.
December 1927
Fifteen years after he sold his last newspaper, Harry buys the Elks Lodge at 10 State Street in Boston and converts it into the Burroughs Newsboy Foundation. Over the next 24 years, thousands of boys—who, as Burroughs put it, “knew too much industry, too little play and laughter”—flocked to the gracious, four-story clubhouse for meals and medical attention and to relax, take part in educational and mentorship programs, and earn college scholarships.
1930
Harry publishes Tale of a Vanished land: Memories of a Childhood in Old Russia. He dedicates the book to his mother.
June 1935
Harry first visits the campus of the YMCA’s Camp Maqua in Poland, Maine. He purchases it with the help of benefactor Maximilian Agassiz and creates The Agassiz Village of the Burroughs Newsboys Foundation.
July 9, 1935
A few days before Agassiz Village is set to open, Harry and the overseer realize the camp will not be ready as planned. All the available labor in the area has helped to clear debris, cut down burned trees, plant gardens, and repair roofs, but there was still much to be done. Harry sends out a call for volunteers to the newsboys in Boston. “They came in droves, leaving their routes and corners, to help build their village. Boys working beside men, shingling roofs, clearing the land, painting the buildings, and making roads.” An hour before the formal opening on July 9, Harry spoke to his counselors: “Soon the boys will arrive. You will experience something you will never forget—the joy of making children happy.”
August 23, 1940
Dedication ceremonies are held at Agassiz Village “in the presence of a score of the country’s leading philanthropists and benefactors of the youth of this nation, 200 other distinguished guests, and 300 Boston newsboys.” Said Harry: “This is a happy day for me, because so many friends are here to enjoy with me the completion of something for which we have all worked together, something for which I have hoped and prayed for many years.”
1944
Harry publishes Boys in Men's Shoes: A World of Working Children.
December 19, 1946
Harry, who has served as the Executive Director of Agassiz Village for 11 years, dies at the age of 56. He leaves behind his wife, Hannah, and three children: Harry E. Jr., Warren, and Jean. Five years later, the Burroughs Newsboys Foundation closes. Agassiz Village, the place that reminded him of his homeland, Kashoffka, continues today.