Wages for most US workers have stagnated, with the exception of one little-noted group: the American baby sitter. Baby sitter rates across the nation have soared, with costs in Greater Boston among the highest. Teenage sitters here command about $10 an hour, a wage that has risen about nine times faster than inflation since the early 1980s, according to the Labor Department. And the more-experienced sitters — those with college degrees or who, say, speak fluent Mandarin — fetch $17 an hour or more. The average is about $12 an hour — more than the average wage of health care aides or retail Continue reading >>>

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The Walk Committee at Hospice of the North Shore Greater Boston (HNSGB) is hosting their Walk Kick Off Party on Thursday, Aug. 15, 5:30-7:30 p.m., in the Atrium at 75 Sylvan St., Danvers. The benefit event, which celebrates the 26th year of the hospice walk, will feature a live and silent auction, a wine ring toss, treasure chest and more. Food provided by Henry’s Market will feature a chic spin on your carnival favorites, a Sangria fountain, as well as an Ice Cream Smorgasbord provided by Treadwell’s Ice Cream. Tickets are $40 and can be purchased online at hnsb.org/walk. Continue reading >>>

The Cummings Foundation, founded in 1986 by Joyce and Bill Cummings of Winchester to aid communities in which Cummings Properties does business, has announced the recipients of its $100K for 100 2013 program. The initiative provides nonprofits in Greater Boston with grants of $100,000; in all, there were 99 recipient organizations. Some of the grants were made as single-year awards; others are multiyear awards, with payments spread over two to 10 years. Among the local recipients: A Better Chance, a Winchester organization that will use the funds to provide academically talented high school students Continue reading >>>

Highlights from the Boston Real Estate Now blog. OK, can’t exactly call it a warning, nor is President Obama suddenly turned into a housing bear. But the president certainly alluded to the potential of a new bubble in his big housing speech Tuesday. Yes, I know, all the housing market cheerleaders keep telling us there is no bubble, that things have changed, that the market will even out, even magically correct itself. Yet just because all those nasty subprime mortgages are a thing of the past doesn’t mean we are somehow immune from another housing bubble. We are seeing the housing market Continue reading >>>

If you’re walking around greater Boston and an unassuming photographer asks to talk and take your picture, consider it a compliment. Photographer Ivan Velinov says he looks for interesting Bostonians who look open to sharing their stories on his Tumblr Portraits of Boston. The blog is getting a lot of attention. In less than a year it has almost 20,000 likes on Facebook and his most popular posts have hundreds of thousands of notes. Nearly anonymous, Velinov says he spends most of his days and nights on this project, essentially living off of credit cards. Though he’s a bit Continue reading >>>

Meryl Thompson of Marblehead and Louise Sharp of Swampscott, this year’s Hospice of the North Shore Greater Boston (HNSGB) Auction Regatta co-chairs, enjoyed a moment together at this year’s event held at the Boston Yacht Club in Marblehead this past June. The most successful in its 19 year history, the event raised over $375,000 to support HNSGB’s mission of providing expert care, support, education and consultation to those affected by life-limiting illness, death and loss. The festivities, which included the auction and the regatta, were attended by over 400 guests. Continue reading >>>

They're both from the Greater Boston area, they both have great hair and they both broke out thickah-than-chowdah accents in "The Departed." So obviously it's easy to mistake Mark Wahlberg for Matt Damon the way celeb-spotter Angelique Dormevil did. According to an account she texted to a friend, she screamed, "MATT DAMON!" when she saw Wahlberg, who still posed for a picture. (The friend she sent the pic to responded with a screen shot of Damon.) Wahlberg posted Dormevil's entire chat on his own Facebook page with the caption "Close enough." He even used a little smiley Continue reading >>>

The lack of Hub conventions in June led to lower hotel occupancy and room rates, according to a new survey. Thomas Grillo Real Estate Editor- Boston Business Journal Email  | Twitter Greater Boston’s convention business fell in June triggering a drop Continue reading >>>