Celebrating the community’s impact on one million lives

2014 LIVE UNITED Awards honor volunteers, corporate and community partners

Last night, United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley celebrated the impact of more than 60,000 individual donors, volunteers, community and corporate partners who together have helped to impact the lives of one million children, youth and families in the region.  This powerful network of donors and volunteers is helping to advance United Way’s comprehensive approach to complex community issues such as reducing poverty and the achievement gap by focusing resources on increasing school readiness, helping youth to stay in school and succeed and helping to prevent and reduce homelessness.

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See more photos from the celebration in our Facebook album!

Among those honored with top LIVE UNITED awards at a reception at Abby Lane last night were Deloitte, Boston Public Schools and Page DeGregorio of Brown Brothers Harriman.  Danielle Vollmar, Meteorologist for WCVB-TV joined United Way’s President Michael K. Durkin to announce the awards.  Awards also went to Children’s Investment Fund, Boston Financial Data Services, United Way’s Community Builders volunteer group, Greg Dubejsky and Aaron Paas of P&G Gillette, Ellen King of Sun Life Financial and Attend.com.  Special recognition was also given to Stop and Shop New England President Joe Kelley for his leadership as United Way’s 2013-2014 Campaign Chair and his efforts to mobilize individuals to give, advocate and volunteer around creating opportunities for all.

“Behind the many individuals who give, advocate, and volunteer for United Way are companies and community agencies who have been dedicated, longstanding partners,” said Michael K. Durkin, President of United Way of Massachusetts Bay and MerrimackValley. “Every act, every contribution, every hour volunteered enables us to have a stronger impact than any one of us can alone.”

Deloitte received the LIVE UNTED Corporate Spirit Award in recognition of its partnership with United Way through fundraising, volunteering, pro bono services, advocating and supporting special initiatives. Its volunteers are focused on efforts ranging from reading to preschoolers in the community to skill-based services, and providing United Way strategic leadership at the Board of Director level.  This year, individual supporters from Deloitte’s Boston office raised more than $1 million for United Way.

Page DeGregorio of Brown Brothers Harriman received the LIVE UNITED Individual Spirit Award for her unwavering commitment and ability to mobilize Brown Brothers Harriman colleagues to provide critical resources to programs that prepare youth to be college and work-ready.  The result: The College Readiness Network created by BBH and United Way last year provided homework help, tutoring, academically enriching activities to 4,170 youth and connected 460 youth with valuable summer or school year jobs, work readiness programs and college and career exploration opportunities.

Boston Public Schools received the LIVE UNITED Innovation Award for Boston K1DS, a partnership between BPS and Thrive in 5 to expand high-quality learning experiences in community settings.  Facing a need to meet a high demand for high-quality pre-school classrooms with limited resources, some of the best and brightest public and private partners came together and developed a solution that expands the Boston Public Schools nationally-recognized pre-school program to 14 programs in communities of high need. The goal is to expand access for families, close the achievement gap and improve the academic outcomes for Boston children living in the Circle of Promise and East Boston. The initiative is being evaluated by the Harvard Graduate School of Education as a potential model for further replication across the city, and it signals a new level of partnership and collaboration between BPS and community programs that could serve as a model for other school districts across the state.

Other Award winners last night were:

• United Way Community Builders – Outstanding Community Service Award
• Children’s Investment Fund – Community Partner of the Year
• Boston Financial Data Services – Corporate Partner of the Year
• Greg Dubejsky and Aaron Pass of P&G Gillette – Corporate Volunteers of the Year
• Ellen King of Sun Life Financial – Committee Member of the Year
• Attend.com – Event Partner of the Year