In theater, when someone has a lofty idea—say, putting a car in the middle of the stage—someone has to figure out how to actually do it. For years, that someone was Cal Innerarity.
As a scenic carpenter at Harvard’s American Repertory Theater, Wheelock Family Theatre, Huntington Theatre Company, and North Shore Music Theatre, Cal spent over a decade turning creative visions into reality. He was practical that way. Someone dreamt it, Cal built it.
When Cal died in December 2024 at age 70, his daughter, Rachael Innerarity, and her mother, Teri Keough, Cal’s life partner, faced their own version of that question: How do we honor someone who wore so many hats? In his lifetime, Cal had been a pilot, a mechanic, an autobody technician, the host of the first all-reggae radio show in the Boston area, a carpenter, a locksmith, an electrician, and always, a consummate storyteller.
With a generous donation from family friends and through the collective generosity of their community, they decided to establish the Calvin Innerarity Memorial Fund at CCF. The Fund will be honoring Cal’s passion for learning by expanding educational opportunities for marginalized people, as well as supporting the urgent needs of the community and beyond.
One of the first grants Rachael and Teri made was to join the community of supporters of Culture Connects Cambridge, CCF’s strategic initiative providing $1.4 million to arts organizations working to strengthen social cohesion across the city. For Cal, who knew many creative people and understood how the arts bring communities together, it made sense.
“My dad believed in dreaming big and using your imagination,” Rachael says. “But he also believed in step-by-step working on a project, finding the most efficient way of achieving it.”
Cal grew up on a farm in the mountains of Jamaica, where you still had to pump your own water. He came to Boston at age nine and worked his way through Tufts. He read his favorite books until they were tattered, and when he died, those books were still among his most cherished possessions. While at Tufts, Cal discovered he had a gift for seamless song transitions—his deep, warm baritone voice spinning reggae records at WMFO for years. You can hear the music he loved on a Spotify playlist that Rachael curated for a website she and Teri created.
If Rachael complained about being bored, Cal had a ready answer: No such thing. That’s why you have an imagination. Go look at the encyclopedia. Go draw something. But that didn’t mean Cal wasn’t at the ready when Rachael—or anybody—was in need. If he saw someone in distress, Cal stopped to help. Car keys locked in the car? He was there. Someone needed a ride? He gave it. Everyone at his bank knew him because he went there instead of using the ATM. Everyone at his insurance office looked forward to seeing him once a month.
Rachael carries forward her own version of Cal’s altruism. She runs a book-donation program that has brought more than 1,200 books to the library at Boston’s South Bay jail in the last year alone. She volunteers weekly, helping with the book club and answering reference questions. She’s working to make it a nonprofit.
Teri remembers how Cal supported her budding passion for photography by building a darkroom as a surprise, then coming home with a mannequin for one of her projects, its body parts protruding from his pockets. “My dad liked using pragmatic means to help people realize their dreams and ambitions,” Rachael says. “He would be happy to be helping people meet their educational, artistic, and career goals.”
Culture Connects Cambridge does exactly that—it helps arts organizations build the capacity they need to bring people together, to strengthen the connections that make a city work. It’s the kind of practical support that turns lofty ideas into reality.
Interested in creating a fund of your own? Contact: [email protected] to start the conversation.
