Rebecca Nieto has been searching for yard waste stickers for a while now. She ventured outside midday on Jan. 28 despite the frigid temperatures. Her destination: the “City Hall on the Go” truck, a bright red vehicle offering municipal services throughout Boston. 

The truck travels around the city’s neighborhoods, making five to eight stops a week for an hour at a time. The Jamaica Plain Boston Center for Youth and Families Curtis Hall was its second location of the day. Nieto was the only person to seek service during the Jamaica Plain stop. 

A dog named Clover wore a bright orange jacket and strode alongside Nieto, who was similarly bundled up for the weather. 

It would have taken Nieto, who has been a homeowner in Jamaica Plain since 1999, around 35 minutes to ride the train to City Hall. Instead, she and Clover walked just a few blocks to the truck. She can’t recall how she found out about the “City Hall on the Go” initiative, except that she needed to show up for a particularly unlikely service. 

“I’ve always wanted yard waste stickers,” she said, jokingly. Nieto set out to make it happen, despite her yard being currently buried in nearly two feet of snow.

When asked why she decided to come in person, despite pointing out that she could have accessed the services online, she said, “people like person-to-person communication.” 

The person with whom Nieto came face-to-face was Errol Johnson, who has been the designated city employee on the truck for the past two years. 

Johnson’s official title is community outreach coordinator, and he’s worked for the city since 2019. Born and raised in Dorchester, he began working for the city, “just to pay it forward.” 

“Giving back to where I come from was the reason I chose to join the city,” he explained.

The City Hall on the Go Truck offers 26 different municipal services. In Johnson’s experience, the most popular requests are excise tax payments and resident parking stickers. Services include voter registration, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) applications, farmers market coupons, health care applications and birth and death certificates.

All of these services can be completed online. While many people take advantage of online access, it’s not so easy for others.

“A lot of people use the truck if there [are] language barriers, or if they’re not computer savvy, or if they have difficulty coming down to the city of Boston,” said Johnson. “Especially with times like these where it’s tough traveling because of snow.”

From January 2025 to January 2026, the Boston City Office of Civic Organizing recorded that the truck made 196 stops and serviced 142 residents (this number only includes the number of services completed and does not include interactions with residents).

“The beautiful thing about it is,” Johnson said, “it’s not always even a service that’s needed from the truck. Sometimes people have different questions about where they should be reaching out to, whether that be the city of Boston, or if it’s a state service. The service works well to have someone in the community that can answer those questions on hand.”

The Office of Civic Organizing debuted the truck in 2012 under previous Mayor Thomas M. Menino. Its original name was “City Hall To Go,” and featured an earlier version of the current truck. The original vehicle was a refurbished Boston Police Department bumper truck, according to Nathalia Ferreira da Silva, the digital and project manager for the Office of Civic Organizing. 

The current vehicle was purchased in 2015 and requires around $5,000 in annual maintenance costs. Its mission is to “save you a trip to Boston City Hall by bringing our services to your doorstep and offering guidance on how to navigate city resources.” 

The truck also provides residents with an opportunity to interact with city employees outside of City Hall, a guiding principle that Mayor Michelle Wu alluded to during her first term. 

“We’ll tackle our biggest challenges by getting the small things right, by getting City Hall out of City Hall, into our neighborhoods,” she said. “Block by block, street by street.” 

Mayor Wu’s oath of office ceremony speech in November 2021 illustrated her commitment to connecting with the community, a value shared by one of her predecessors, Mayor Menino. 

For Johnson, “the truck is a perfect example of that, of meeting people where they are.” 

The city also uses the truck for neighborhood cleanup efforts, in collaboration with residents and public works. It’s used to lug tools and trash between locations and was involved in 88 cleanups this past year.

The bright red color makes it recognizable, whether it’s delivering tools or municipal services to Bostonians. 

“Civic organizing is an amazing office [because] we get to do such great initiatives that actually help people in a light way,” Ferreira da Silva said. “I feel like sometimes, community, they get together [when] something bad happened, and then you have a moment [of] community-building. But no, we want to connect people through good stuff, like, good memories.”

The City Hall on the Go Truck will continue to serve the city of Boston. The Office of Civic Organizing posts monthly schedules on their website and on social media platforms. 

“I almost hear it on a daily basis when people are coming out to the truck, that either they would have never had time to make it down to City Hall,” Johnson said, “or that they’re happy that these services exist.”

Following her visit to the truck, Nieto walked the short distance home, yard waste stickers in hand.