Street Ambassadors

What is a Street Ambassador?

From Getting Allston on Board to Warren St + Malcolm X Blvd, volunteer and paid Street Ambassadors play a pivotal role in many of LivableStreets’ campaigns. Trained by our staff and lead advocates, Street Ambassadors actively engage with people on the street, hearing and elevating the stories and experiences of community members to put community needs at the center and leading the conversation about changes on our streets.

We developed our paid Street Ambassador program because people are our biggest assets! Many of the neighborhoods where we work have historically and continue to be lived in by BIPOC and/or low income families and individuals. Due to decades of racism and classism, these neighborhoods have been chronically underinvested in terms of both physical and social infrastructure. Paying people for their expertise ensures our advocacy is rooted in community needs and will further racial and economic justice.

Two men with light skin talk while standing on a corner next to a storefront. They are both wearing masks, and one is a Street Ambassador in an orange LivableStreet shirt. The other man holds the leash of a dog who looks up in curiosity at the Street Ambassador.

Why Street Ambassadors?

The best way to improve a street is to get out there and get people talking about it. Street Ambassadors play a crucial role in demystifying the public process, organizing community concerns, and directly communicating those concerns to officials and decision makers. . Street Ambassadors help to bring in voices that aren’t normally heard to ensure that our streets are safe, accessible, and equitable.

Thanks to the support of our Street Ambassadors, both paid and volunteer, we have accomplished a lot.

We collected more than 1500 responses for our Longwood Area Multimodal Survey in 2017. The hard work of our Street Ambassadors helped lay the groundwork for our report "Finding A Cure: Transportation in the Longwood Area."
As part of our American Legion Highway + Cummins Highway campaign in the summer of 2020, paid Street Ambassadors held both socially distanced and virtual conversations to collect over 500 survey responses from local residents. These responses led to the inclusion of these corridors as part of the City of Boston’s Healthy Streets COVID response. Residents shared that they want reduced speeding, so the City added protected bike lanes to narrow the street and make crossing the street safer. At the end of their employment, Street Ambassadors shared their findings directly with Boston City Councilors and Transportation Department staff.

Street Ambassador duties can include:

Helping to design and administer surveys and collect petition signatures
Communicating goals and benefits of proposed projects
Handing out informational flyers
Asking community members for their feedback

A trio of people stand next to a building. From left to right, they are a short Black woman who has glasses and is giving the camera a big smile; a tall white man with short dark hair and dark sunglasses, also smiling at the camera; and a thin white man with gray hair who is smiling at the camea without showing his teeth. All three are wearing orange LivableStreets t-shirts.

Upcoming Opportunities

Current Street Ambassador Work - Volunteer + Paid

Starting April 3rd, join us as a Street Ambassador to survey and collect information about how Mass Ave is working. You can sign up for April shifts or sign up for May shifts.

Email [email protected] with any questions or to learn more.