Environmental activists, politicians hope to follow example set by Jack Coughlin

AGAWAM — Unable to move his arms and legs, voiceless and confined to a hospital bed, Jack Coughlin is still leading the movement to keep his town clean.

Coughlin was struck by a vehicle on Jan. 20 on Mill Street near Kensington Street in the Feeding Hills section of town. Despite the cold weather and waning light, he was doing what he did almost every day: walking the streets of his town, picking up trash.

In the weeks since the accident, he’s remained paralyzed and under close care at Baystate Medical Center. But his friends and supporters around town have been busy ensuring that his work goes on.

“There’s been a tremendous outpouring of support,” said his son, Sean Coughlin, an East Longmeadow resident. “My father touched more people than I realized.”

Many residents in Agawam wouldn’t know his name, but they’d recognize him — especially if they saw him toting a 55-gallon trash bag. Coughlin was a constant presence on Agawam’s roads, trails and shorelines, picking up litter with the metal grabber he called his “nifty nabber.” He would walk the streets of Agawam for hours a day, seven days a week.

And they’ll know his name now. State Rep. Nicholas Boldyga, R-Southwick, re-filed a bill to extend the 5-cent deposit law to cover “nip” bottles, and is calling it “Jack’s Bill.” The Agawam City Council recently voted 10-0 to endorse the measure as a tribute to Coughlin. The School Committee plans to rename the town’s Earth Day activities to “Jack Coughlin Appreciation Day.”

Naming a school event for Coughlin is especially apt, said Mayor William Sapelli, because he always found time to educate others. Sapelli remembers Coughlin, who turned 78 in the days after the collision, speaking with teens at the town’s skate park at Shea Field, explaining how litter on the ground gets swept into the stormwater drains and pollutes the local creeks and rivers.

“He would talk to the skateboard kids about picking up their bottles and trash, because there’s only one Earth,” Sapelli said.

Nancy Bobskill, an environmental activist and former science teacher in town, said she hopes people of all ages can be inspired by Coughlin’s example. She said it’s important that idealistic young people see that they can carry their environmental principles, and advocacy, throughout their lives.

“Here you have a person who was very enthusiastic,” said Bobskill. “Here was a person still doing what he was called to do.”

Bobskill said she’s working with Sheryl Becker, from the Westfield River Watershed Association, to honor Coughlin at the next shoreline cleanup day, perhaps by designating the volunteers as “Coughlin’s crew.” Coughlin was a regular participant in cleanup events on the Connecticut and Westfield rivers.

Not many people would be willing to make the daily time commitment that Coughlin made, Bobskill said, but his example could inspire hundreds.

“He did the work of a lot of people,” Bobskill said. “If we can get our community to, say, clean in front of a few houses, … and we get a whole lot of people to do that … maybe the whole community could do the work he did before.”

Passing the nip bottle bill would be a good start, she added. Coughlin had identified discarded nip bottles — small plastic bottles containing a single serving of liquor, also known as “miniatures” — as the most extensive form of littering in town. Placing a 5-cent deposit on nips, as is already done for beer and soda bottles, would make people less likely to toss them on streets and parking lots, she said.

Both of Agawam’s representatives on Beacon Hill — Boldyga and state Sen. John Velis, D-Westfield — have said they will push for a nip bottle bill this year. Boldyga said he’s proud to take up the cause of a “community hero.”

“He didn’t just see a problem and complain about it, he got out there every day and did what no one else would do,” Boldyga said. “His efforts not only literally cleaned up the streets of Agawam, but it has inspired a whole town on the importance of being an active part of where you live, and to fight for what you believe in.”

Environmentalism isn’t Coughlin’s only cause. Ironically, outdoor safety was on his mind in the weeks before the collision. During one of his litter patrols, he had seen young people riding bicycles on Rowley Street, wearing dark clothes at dusk. He asked the mayor to work with civic organizations to provide children with reflective vests. He often wore such vests himself, though he wasn’t wearing one on the date of the collision. His son suspects the vest wouldn’t fit over the heavy jacket he was wearing in the cold January weather.

Coughlin had been a fighter and an advocate since his children were small. Sean recalled his father as a tireless activist for neighborhood improvements in East Forest Park and Sixteen Acres. He was an early advocate for building a soccer field and playground at Treetop Park on Corcoran Boulevard, though he passed the project to others before it was completed. He was a founder of the Outer Belt Civic Association, and president of the Brookside Soccer Association. He picked up trash around Five Mile Pond, Loon Pond and Lake Lorraine.

Even at work, he would spend his break time caring for the environment. Coughlin transformed the parking lot at the Verizon building in Holyoke — “as trashy as you can imagine a city parking lot could be,” Sean said — into an urban garden. The company had to ask him to stop, because it had become “a tourist attraction” and employees were having a hard time finding spaces.

Wherever he lives, Coughlin has also picked up trash by the roadside, first in Springfield, then West Springfield, finally Agawam.

Though he’s best known locally for his campaign against litter, Coughlin has also lobbied the Statehouse on hunting and fishing issues. He pushed for the state to purchase several properties with the money from wildlands stamps purchased by hunters, anglers and trappers. Another of his causes was reclassifying shad as a gamefish.

Recently, he’d also spent 12 years pushing for improvements to the Medina Street boat ramp in Chicopee. The renovation project received nearly $1 million in state funding, Sean Coughlin said, and is planned to open this spring.

“He said to me, a week before the accident, that once this boat launch is complete, ‘I’ve completed my mission, I can die, I just can’t die until that’s done,” Sean recalled. “I told him he was going to live to 100. He was extremely healthy. This was a guy who walked up to 10 miles a day, at age 77, every day.”

He said when the hospital called to ask for his father’s medical history, Sean replied, “he has none.” Jack hadn’t been to a doctor’s office in 20 years — he had no conditions, took no medication, rarely even caught a cold.

The worst part of the hospitalization, said Sean, is that because of COVID-19 restrictions, neither he nor his sister Erin, a Springfield resident, visit him in person. They communicate by video chat, with Jack mouthing his words silently.

Another source of pain for the family is the uncertainty. The police investigation into the accident could take months, and until it’s released, they don’t know whether they will receive any insurance money. In the meantime, they face steep medical bills. The family has started a GoFundMe donation campaign, and on Thursday had raised more than $14,600 toward its $100,000 goal.

Today, Sean and Erin’s priority is to keep their father thinking positive. They tell him about the progress of the bottle bill, the voted resolutions, the outpouring of public support. He can’t voice his thanks, but they can see how it lifts his spirits to know he’s set an example.

Sean said that’s what his father wants: “Carry on. Fill his shoes.”

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