The man opened the door of his Dorchester home and peered at the city employees on his doorstep.
"We're here with the mayor's office, brother. How you doing?" said Cory Anderson, an affable public works laborer. "We're reaching out to the city. We're trying to come out and service you, you know?"
The 33-year-old man's reserve melted away as Anderson and another city employee asked him what city services he needed, gave him a book bag full of school supplies, and surveyed him about healthcare, jobs, and problems on his street.
The visit was one of the first employees and other volunteers plan to make in the next several weeks in sections of the city that in the past three years have had a high concentration of crime. The plan is to knock on doors and ask residents what they need to feel safer and to urge them to join neighborhood councils. The councils will examine problems in the neighborhood and discuss them with police and city liaisons.
The employees and volunteers canvassing the neighborhoods also plan to ask parents whether their children are involved in after-school programs and to offer transportation to community centers for children whose parents are afraid to let them go out alone.
Yesterday, Mayor Thomas M. Menino, who joined the volunteers, said the program was "another step on the road map to reducing violence and destruction in the neighborhoods of Boston."
Employees and volunteers will canvass four to six blocks in four areas of Dorchester and Roxbury: Bowdoin Street and Geneva Avenue in Dorchester, Blue Hill Avenue and Creston Street in Roxbury, Harrison Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard in Roxbury, and Blue Hill and Woodrow avenues in Dorchester.
Last night, roughly 40 volunteers walked the Grove Hall neighborhood with police escorts.
On Stanwood Street, they walked in the light rain, leaving fliers explaining the effort in mailboxes when no one answered.
The residents they talked to appeared receptive, expressing gratitude for the free school supplies and gamely answering questions.
"What is the biggest issue facing the neighborhood?" Katrina Chesnulovitch, a data analyst with the city's Public Health Commission, asked a 33-year-old man who declined to give his name.
"Crime," said the man. He said he would like to see more police in the neighborhood.
"Walking the beat, constantly," he said, "not just for a month after a shooting happened."
He wished the volunteers well.
"Watch your back in this neighborhood," he called out as they moved on. "Good luck!"
Maria Cramer can be reached at mcramer@globe.com.
