SALEM — Michael Collins is a master of small favors — a phone call here, a request on behalf of a friend there. A lifetime of those favors can yield big results and yesterday it earned him one of Salem's most prestigious awards.
Collins, 54, a 27-year member of the Boys & Girls Club board of directors and two-time president, received the Chief John P. Ganley Community Service Award.
Ganley, a former Salem police chief who also served on the board of directors at the club, died in 1989 at age 56. The award is given each St. Patrick's Day at a corned beef lunch where local and state politicians are as ubiquitous as the color green.
Kathleen Ganley Donovan, daughter of John Ganley, said Collins was the sixth child in his family, with five older sisters.
"You could say he was born into serving others and getting things done," she said.
In addition to his work for the Boys & Girls Club, Collins also serves on the board of directors at Salemhaven Rehabilitation and Nursing Center.
Collins said he has known the Ganley family for many years, probably even before they knew him. He delivered the newspaper to the Alexander Street home where Jack Ganley and his wife, Marguerite, lived.
Collins was at the board meeting when Ganley decided to start an endowment fund for the Boys & Girls Club, at a time when the club was struggling financially and had a facility that was not quite state of the art.
"He, that night, cut the first check," Collins said. "Probably Marguerite didn't know about it."
Collins would later serve on the building committee during the club's 2004 renovation. Before his speech, he recalled how difficult times were for the club during much of his time on the board.
"We've come a long way," he said. "It's a wonderful place."
Gov. John Lynch, who spoke at the event, said he was happy to be in Salem when the weather was "more accommodating." He took a tour of Salem's flooded areas earlier this week.
"Once again, this time around, as is true of the previous disasters, what I saw was that everyone in Salem came together," he said.
Lynch, whose father was the executive director of the Boys Club in Waltham and later of Boston, said the organization was special to him.
"I really know what it does for the students here in Salem and in other places in New Hampshire," he said.
Collins said Ganley would be proud of what the Boys & Girls Club in Salem had become. He recalled Ganley as a man who loved his wife dearly — and also had a loving relationship with Collins' 1966 Mustang, which he eventually sold to the former police chief.
Collins said those who worked with him during his years at the Boys & Girls Club made the work more satisfying.
"They made it easy and I enjoyed doing it," he said. "I made some great friendships that I will hopefully die with."
In addition to corned beef and cabbage, there was plenty of joking to go around.
"I actually received more calls to keep this speech short than I did with congratulations," Collins cracked before his speech.
George Khoury, a past recipient of the award who served as the master of ceremonies, offered a runner-up prize to those politicians and local figures in the audience who did not get mentioned during the speech: a T-shirt that said "I did not get a shout-out at the Ganley Luncheon."
William Ganley, John Ganley's son and Salem's deputy police chief, said it was nice to see the award go to a good friend of his father.
"Mike's a nice guy and the quintessential Irishman," he said.
Collins is the 21st person to receive the award.
"It's always a great event," he said. "I'm not the first one to come down the road here."
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