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Dave Aldrich was napping when the phone rang with news that would change an ordinary afternoon into something extraordinary.
He had been named the 2025 Essex Media Group Person of the Year for Marblehead. The award, in its ninth year, is selected by the newspapers' staff from community nominations. Essex Media Group publishes Marblehead Weekly News in Marblehead and The Daily Item in Lynn.
"I said, 'Are you sure?' They said, 'Yes, Dave, it's true,'" Aldrich told the crowd gathered Feb. 12 at the Lynn Museum to honor him. "I do what I do, not for this. I do what I do because I know what it's like to be left behind and discarded and pretty much left for dead."
Aldrich runs Grab the Bagel, a nonprofit operation that puts its earnings back into the community, according to Marblehead Weekly News. The business supports local families, first responders and counseling services. Before launching the bagel shop, he ran Grab the Torch, a national program that worked with high school students on leadership and service.
Sophia Harris, a reporter and news editor for Marblehead Weekly News and The Daily Item who presented the award, described Aldrich's transformation from educator to baker.
"For decades, he taught young people that giving back is not optional, it is a responsibility," Harris said in her remarks at the ceremony. "But when the pandemic shuttered schools and in-person programming, his work came to an abrupt halt. With funding gone and students overwhelmed, Aldrich faced a choice: pause his mission or reinvent it."
The shift from teaching to baking happened out of necessity. When COVID-19 closed schools, his work with students stopped. He started dropping off homemade cobblers at neighbors' doorsteps. By New Year's Day 2022, he was making bagels by hand and leaving them with handwritten notes, according to the publication. He set up a kitchen operation and later bought a minibus he named The Elsie Express after his 107-year-old godmother.
Harris described the deeper meaning behind Aldrich's work.
"For Aldrich, the bagel is not the point," Harris said. "It is the vehicle, a warm, circular reminder that leadership begins with showing up, giving freely, and believing that even the simplest offering can nourish a community."
Standing before the audience at the Lynn Museum, Aldrich described a mission that started small 20 years ago with one person and has since grown to serve thousands across Marblehead, Swampscott, Lynn and Nahant.
He pointed to a recent example. Last month, he organized a community sendoff for Nikolay "Niko" Kuzmina, who worked the checkout line at Stop & Shop in Swampscott for 23 years before moving to Florida after his mother was killed in a car accident.
"It was Marblehead at its very best," Aldrich said.
According to The Marblehead Independent, Kuzmina's sister flew up from Delray Beach after their mother died to arrange the move. Aldrich organized the Jan. 25 gathering at the Warwick theater, where Select Board members presented Kuzmina with a proclamation and a Marblehead police officer gave him a custom polo embroidered with his name and the words "HONORARY OFF." Aldrich also named him honorary baker at Grab the Bagel.
At the ceremony honoring Aldrich, he credited a woman who recently died for giving him his start years ago. He thanked Harris and the Essex Media Group publications for helping him reach more people.
"I can tell you that as the articles continued in the Marblehead news, in the Lynn item, I got more and more help," Aldrich said. "I got more and more exposure, I got more and more business, and I felt more and more grateful."
He closed with a promise.
"Our work will continue. Our work will be fun, and it's a privilege to be here," Aldrich said. "We will continue to serve you, and we'll do it gleefully and without hesitation."
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