Annual Civic Awards Luncheon Draws Broad Attendance Across the Metropolitan Region
Now in its fourth decade, the luncheon has become one of the region's most consistent occasions for recognizing contributions to public life.
The annual Civic Awards Luncheon, held Thursday at the convention center, drew what organizers described as one of the largest gatherings in the event's history — a room of several hundred that included elected officials, nonprofit leaders, business representatives, educators, and a considerable number of people who have spent their careers working in the less visible precincts of public life that civic awards events exist, in part, to illuminate.
This year's honorees included a longtime volunteer coordinator for the regional food distribution network, a retired public school principal whose tenure spanned four decades and whose former students spoke with remarkable consistency about her effect on their lives, and a small cohort of individuals recognized for sustained contributions to the region's environmental and open space preservation efforts.
The keynote address was delivered by a former state legislator who spoke about the relationship between civic participation and institutional trust in terms that were both candid and, by the standards of such occasions, unusually direct. Several attendees said afterward that it was the best keynote the luncheon had featured in recent memory, which may say something about the keynote or may say something about recent memory.
The luncheon has been held annually for thirty-eight years and is organized by a consortium of civic organizations. Nominations for next year's honorees will open in the autumn.