The MTA’s Human Relations Committee presented the Louise Gaskins Lifetime Civil Rights Award to Inclusive Eats, a student-led group tackling food insecurity through a lens of cultural sensitivity. The committee also awarded the Kathleen Roberts Creative Leadership Award to Raising Multicultural Kids, an organization formed by parents and education professionals that is bringing BIPOC instructors into public schools to spark discussions about race and identity.
Do you know someone — or a group of people — who are working to make the world a better place? Nominate them for a 2025 award.
The deadline for submissions is April 21, 2025. The Humans and Civil Rights Award is scheduled on Sunday, July 27, 2025 at the start of the MTA Summer Conference in UMass Amherst.
The two organizations were recognized at the HRC’s annual awards dinner, held June 14, 2024 in Worcester.
Belmont educator Denise LaPolla, chair of the HRC, presented the awards to Woburn brothers Luke and Noah Sheldon, of Inclusive Eats, and to Raising Multicultural Kids co-founders Kelly Lamb and Denise Barbosa Lane.
For 40 years, the MTA has been recognizing its members and community activists dedicated to advancing racial and social justice, LaPolla noted.
“During this time, the MTA has honored leaders, activists, advocates, role models, risk takers, organizers and innovators,” LaPolla said. “The range of award winners has been broad, but they all share a passion and commitment to enriching the lives of those they serve. Tonight, we will be adding two new organizations to this impressive list.”
Woburn resident Lisa Sullivan of the Lexington Education Association nominated Inclusive Eats for the Louise Gaskins Lifetime Civil Rights Award. The award is given to those who display leadership and tenacity in advocating for the rights of others. This award is named after a pioneer in the MTA’s ongoing commitment to fighting for the rights of women, people of color and marginalized communities.
The awards, established in 1983, recognize individuals or groups who advance civil rights or human relations and are presented by the MTA Human Relations Committee.
These awards were not made in 2022 and 2023.
Juneteenth marks the date in 1865 when federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, to ensure that all enslaved people were freed. That act, two-and-a-half years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, effectively marked the end of slavery in the U.S.