Article June 13, 2005 Issue

THE GENTLEMAN FROM CENTERVILLE

By Sara Hoagland Hunter

LIKE MOST UNSUNG HEROES Roy Richardson isn't someone you'd pick out of a crowd. He's also not someone you'd choose to interview for facile, self-serving sound bites.' Asked how he has been able to maintain his pure love for mankind throughout decades of serving the homeless, the imprisoned, the addicted, and the disabled, his expression is one of bewilderment. "It's easy to love people when you get to know them," he says.

It's not until I spend a tagging along with this deeply joyful man that I fully understand what "knowing" someone means to Roy Richardson.

In his 12 years as a Protestant minister, Roy Richardson fed the homeless, counseled troubled adolescents, and successfully integrated a large Boston church. When his spiritual hunger wasn't satisfied, he turned to a religion that had always attracted him, Christian Science. In the more than three decades since he and his wife, Jackie, first attended a Wednesday night meeting at their church on Cape Cod in Massachusetts, he has never looked back. "I use Christian Science in everything I do," he says. That "everything" involves a 22-year career as probation officer, longtime town council member, including two years as president, Salvation Army Advisory Board chairman, board member of the Friends of Prisoners as well as of the Community Action Committee of the Cape and Islands (an anti-poverty advocacy group). In addition, Roy had served his local Christian Science church in numerous capacities. He and Jackie have raised nine children, including a foster son who resides at "CHIP's House"—Cape Head Injured Persons' Housing, a residence Roy helped found and currently directs.