Beth Santos runs Wanderful, a global women’s travel community she’s been building for 12 years. She and her husband Marvin own Ula Cafe in Jamaica Plain, an “activist cafe” in the Sam Adams Brewery building. For the past couple of years, she’s been deep in the weeds of Boston civic life in ways she never expected.
In this episode, Beth talks about how she became one of the loudest public advocates for the White Stadium Project (a public-private partnership that would turn a crumbling, 70-year-old stadium in Franklin Park into a state-of-the-art facility owned by Boston public schools and home to the city’s new National Women’s Soccer League team), what it was like to show up at a nine-hour City Hall hearing to give public comment in the middle of a Wednesday, and why the narrative around the project got so twisted she had to write a letter to the Jamaica Plain News just to set the record straight.
She also gets into what it was like when Marvin ran for Boston City Council last year. She shared what it costs to run, who ends up in those rooms, and why the line between “good at running” and “good at leading” is so wide.
Beth is funny, sharp, and genuinely passionate, and she makes the case that none of us are actually outside of politics, whether we like it or not.
Chapter List
0:08 — Welcome & Introducing Beth Santos
1:18 — Wanderful, Ula Cafe & Building Community
5:43 — You Don’t Need a Title to Be Civically Engaged
9:46 — Growing Up With an Activist Mom and a Gas Mask
13:32 — White Stadium: Franklin Park, a 70-Year-Old Ruin & the Deal That Changed Everything
20:48 — The Misinformation Problem and the Letter That the Boston Globe Picked Up
23:54 — Joining the Mayor’s Neighborhood Advisory Council (and Keeping Gentrification in the Room)
26:23 — When People Question Your Motives
28:35 — Giving Public Comment at a Nine-Hour Hearing
30:43 — Who Gets to Participate? The Privilege Required to Show Up on a Wednesday
37:33 — Marvin’s Run for Boston City Council: What It Takes, What It Costs, What It’s Like
47:56 — How to Stay Civically Engaged When You’re Already Overwhelmed
52:37 — Phone Banking at Ula Cafe and the Power of Just Showing Up
54:34 — Wrap-Up & Part Two Teaser
