Inspiration and gratitude filled the room Friday night as NeighborWorks America honored five community leaders with the Dorothy Richardson Award for Resident Leadership. The ceremony took place in Minneapolis during the NeighborWorks Community Leadership Institute (CLI), an event that trains community leaders to amplify their voices as they build skills to further help their communities. It also gives them a chance to connect.
The award is named for Dorothy Mae Richardson, a woman who, together with her neighbors, helped save her Pittsburgh neighborhood from disinvestment. “Dorothy believed that neighbors could come together to save their homes, strengthen their community and help build a better future,” said NeighborWorks President & CEO Marietta Rodriguez. “That belief didn’t just change
Pittsburgh. It changed the nation.”
Richardson embodied a new type of leadership, showing that the people who live in a community are the best equipped to identify challenges – and solve them. The five honorees are proof of that.
“Each of them has turned vision into action, leading change that makes their communities stronger, safer, and more connected,” Rodriguez said.
Alpresteon “Sabrina” Billings of Yazoo, Mississippi, nominated by Hope Enterprise Corp, guided 40 families to homeownership. She told the audience – all working in their own communities – about a car accident in August of this year – a head-on collision. That moment, she said, changed my life forever. “Every day I remember how precious life is. To stand here tonight as the recipient of the Dorothy Richardson award is humbling beyond words.”
Her inspiration to do the work she does, comes from her parents and her children, she said. “This award does not belong to me alone. It’s for every family who found stability, every child who has a safe place to lay their heads, every neighbor who believes we can make our community stronger.”
She accepted the award in Richardson’s spirit, asking the crowd to continue to believe that change is possible. “I hope everyone remembers to carry hope in your heart. You are not alone in this journey.”
Michael Duffy of Kansas City, Missouri, nominated by Westside Housing, stood up for his neighbors, who had faced soaring property taxes. Duffy has long been involved with Westside (they consider him a cofounder), a nonprofit that has been instrumental in helping his neighborhood by renovating apartments, repairing homes and strengthening the community. “It worked,” he said. “But it worked too well.” As the neighborhood improved, new and wealthier people moved in, raising home prices. Homeowners who had been there all along faced outsized tax increases.
“It was not the fault of the gentrifiers,” he said. “It’s the tax system itself.” He called property taxes a regressive tax that “promotes a caste system in our country,” he said.
Duffy figured out a new way to give longtime homeowners tax breaks by using incentives normally reserved for developers, like Tax Increment Financing. “We’ve slayed the prop tax dragon in Kansas city,” he said, urging others to investigate the own tax laws in their own cities, and make them fair.
Whitley D. English of Asheville, North Carolina, nominated by Mountain Housing opportunities, has attended three community leadership institutes as a participant. “Today to stand here as an awardee fills me with honor and love.”
English, a victim of intimate violence, spoke of the power of relationship and partnership building, the power that comes from sharing a vision. She expressed gratitude to all who had believed in her mission and helped her turn her tragedy into triumph. “It is imperative that we share our truth,” she said, and in doing so, bring about fairness.
English found self worth and self empowerment through holistic hearing and spoke of the need for systems that are based on compassion. A holistic approach to affordable housing, she said, responds not just to structural needs but emotional ones, nurturing healing.
Her goal, she said, “is to help people find their peace and power.” She does that through her organization, WNC Gems, and in her personal life as well. “My purpose is to live every day through service and healing and acts of kindness.”
Chester Dewitt of Providence, Rhode Island, nominated by One Neighborhood Builders, expanded opportunities for neighborhood youth through a Bike Distribution and Repair project – and through mentoring youth.
“What’s amazing about this is this all started with my brothers wanting to play basketball,” he said. “We played ball in our community and we saw the needs.” They wanted to fill them.
He said the inspiration to do the work came from the strong Black women in his community growing up, who, while he was growing up, always took care of them and of each other. “Through the strong ladies in our community, they made us the men that we are today.”
Dewitt and his friends passed that strength down, mentoring kids in the community and making a difference. His plan is to continue doing that work by launching a sports facility in Providence that would be free for kids – as long as they were open to mentorship. “We spend a lot of time coaching the body, but we don’t coach the mind,’ he said. That needs to change.
Michael Ulibarri of Salt Lake City, Utah, nominated by NeighborWorks Salt Lake, mentors others to help them find promise and possibility after incarceration. Like English, he has attended previous leadership institutes, and was glad to return this year as an honoree.
Ulibarri is also a mentor. He spent years in prison and while behind bars, he started helping others. He vowed to continue that work when he left and he’s kept that vow. He focuses on youth – and on second chances. Ulibarri said he had been grateful to share the honor with his mother. After the pain he’d put her through, it meant a lot for her to see him succeed, he said.
“The message that I want to share is to share your access,” he told the crowd. “When someone opens the door for you, hold it open.”
Ulibarri has done just that, taking the knowledge and lessons he learned and spreading them. Being there for others, he said, is key.
Rodriguez said something all five honorees share is action – they don’t wait for someone else to step in. “They listen, they organize and they persist. And in doing so, they make their communities better for everyone."
