Alfreda J. Harris has been the wind beneath the wings of countless youth and adults from the Roxbury Community and beyond. She has dedicated and committed her life as a public servant, always giving to others regardless of their age, sex, religion, color, ethnicity, economic situation or cultural differences. She has been a Champion of Children, an advocate, a counselor, a teacher, a coach, a friend and mother to young people trying to find their way into adult hood. Even after retirement in 1996 from the Boston Parks Department, as the Deputy Commissar of Parks and Recreation, Alfreda Harris remains a loyal and supportive member of our community, giving to others in so many ways only she could do. She is currently the Chair of the John A. Shelburne Community Council, Inc. and was the longest serving member of the Boston School Committee, and a Board member of Boston PAL (Police Athletic League). 

Alfreda Harris even found time in her busy schedule to be one of the most successful Women's Basketball Coaches in New England leading her basketball teams at Roxbury Community College and University of Massachusetts Boston to an outstanding 136-20 career record. Her teams won four New England Collegiate Championships and competed in the NJCAA Women's Championships. She has produced several high school and college All-Americans. All of this was done while raising her own two children after becoming a widow when her son and daughter were teenagers. Alfreda Harris is and always will be a phenomenal woman, and in someone who is respected by governs, mayors, elected and appointed officials and ordinary citizens across Boston and the state of Massachusetts. 

Alfreda Harris has been awarded the Mayors African American Life Time Achievement Award. In 2010 Mrs. Harris was inducted into the N.B.A. Hall of Fame, the Manny Jackson Human Spirit Award, UMass Boston Hall of Fame, N.E. Basketball Hall of Fame, and in July 2013 she was inducted into the N.J.C.A.A. Coaches Hall of Fame. 

Many of her awards are on display throughout the John A. Shelburne Community Center, her awards are too numerous to mention.