This past summer you may have noticed signs popping up on lawns, bumper stickers appearing on cars, and posters emerging in store windows. It is election season! This past March, Mayor Thomas Menino declared his resignation after twenty years of service to the city of Boston, and twelve promising candidates quickly lined up in hopes of filling the vacant position left by Boston’s longest serving mayor. Among these mayoral hopefuls was John Barros, cousin of Winsor’s senior class president, Janice Fidalgo ’14.

        An active spokesperson since his time at BC High and Dartmouth College, Barros has since gone on to receive numerous community service awards for his work pertaining to youth and social justice. On a more personal level, Barros is also co-founder of Restaurante Cesaria, a Cape Verdean restaurant in Dorchester, MA, as well as an expecting father. When asked about her relationship with her cousin, Janice fondly recalled watching “Criminal Minds” with Barros and singing the Despicable Me minions’ Banana song with his adorable one-year-old son.

“Working closely on a campaign at such a young age showed me how important it was to get involved politically”, Janice explained her experience working with Barros, “Door knocking especially taught me patience and people skills. Even though I had experimented with public speaking, trying to convince a complete stranger to vote for your candidate is very challenging.” All those months of campaigning were not for nothing, as Barros beat out over half of the candidates in the primary election on September 24.

Though Barros will not proceed to the general election on November 5, Janice still believes it was an amazing experience for her to participate in the campaign. John Barros himself said, “It’s strong volunteers like Janice who help us make Boston even better.” Be sure to watch out for Janice and the rest of Barros’ team during the next election!