Nutmeg honors five mentors

Nutmeg Big Brothers Big Sisters honored five “Bigs” — adult mentors — for changing the lives of disadvantaged children for the better. The awards were presented at Nutmeg’s annual Volunteer Recognition Event recently at the Keeney Memorial Cultural Center in Wethersfield. For the first time ever, Nutmeg presented the Victoria L. Soto Memorial Award, named for a respected teacher at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, who died heroically on Dec. 14, 2012, in an attempt to save the lives of first grade students in her care. Soto was a “Big Sister” in Nutmeg’s Windham School District site-based mentoring program for each of her four years as an undergraduate at Eastern Connecticut State University. The honor went to Ana Robles, an administrative assistant at The Hartford, who for the past four years mentored a 14-year-old from Hartford. Receiving exceptional mentor awards that evening were Kevin Cranford Sr. of Manchester; Thomas Cigas of Bethany; Pauline Centeno of Bloomfield; and Jenna Director of Rocky Hill. Director is the granddaughter of Arthur Director, who, with jeweler Bernie Fields, co-founded Nutmeg Big Brothers Big Sisters in 1966. Pictured are, from left, Carlos Matthew Soto, the brother of Victoria Soto; honoree Ana Robles; Donna Soto, Victoria Soto’s mother; and Jillian Soto, Victoria Soto’s sister.