Bella diGrazia and Matt Demirs in their Lynn English 2014 senior prom photo.
BY DILLON DURST
LYNN — Bella diGrazia and Matt Demirs let it be known that they’re proud to be from Lynn.
The Lynn English High School graduates recently published articles on Odyssey, a content platform that discovers and shares millennial voices, about their North Shore home.
Demirs’ piece, “8 Reasons Why Lynn Massachusetts is Highly Underrated,” has been shared on Facebook more than 3,000 times, while diGrazia’s “Why Growing Up in Lynn Massachusetts Made Me Racially Colorblind” has more than 5,000 hits.
DiGrazia, a 20-year-old communications major at the University of Massachusetts Boston, said she felt inspired to write the article because of the recent racial animosity in America and she wanted her voice to be heard. She said the response has been amazing.
“People who are from Lynn and have been living here for 60 years were sharing their stories with me,” she said. “It’s sort of been a dream come true.”
In the story, diGrazia, who grew up on Beacon Hill Avenue, talks about being a second-grader at Hood Elementary School and being asked to write something she had in common with her classmates.
“While everyone seemed to be writing down the same basic ideas, such as parents, clothes, fingers, toes, etc .., I wrote down ‘We all have hearts,’” she said. “As the teacher read my answer aloud, she was blown away. All my classmates sitting next to me came up and hugged me.”
Her second grade teacher, Tammy Marini, left a comment on the online story, which said, “It was so special to read this article and know that my second grade class had some influence in how you see the world.”
On reconnecting with Marini after so many years, diGrazia said, “It meant the world.”
Demirs, 20, an English major at Lake Forest College in Illinois, said he was missing home when he wrote the article about Lynn being underrated. Living more than 16 hours from home, he said it was cool seeing so many people agree with his list of eight beautiful destinations in the city.
“When you’re gone for so long, you realize how much you miss home,” he said.
Demirs lists such places such as Lynn Beach, Lynn Memorial Auditorium and Wyoma Square as a few of the city’s most special sites. He thought it hit home for a lot of people, especially at a time when “a lot of bad things are happening,” he said.
Demirs doesn’t get home much these days, but when he does, he said his go-to spot in Lynn is Monte’s Restaurant.
“They have great pizza,” he said.
Dillon Durst can be reached at [email protected].