On the evening of Thursday, November 19, 2009, the Virginia Organizing Project (VOP) was honored with a Community Change Champions Award from the Center for Community Change (CCC). The event is CCC’s opportunity to recognize two extraordinary individuals and two organizations that have made a deep and meaningful commitment to low-income communities and disenfranchised constituencies throughout our country.
“Community organizing has a rich history for being a positive force for social change, more important now than ever before,” said Deepak Bhargava, executive director of the Center for Community Change. “Tonight we honored some amazing leaders and organizations in the social justice movement who have played critical roles in getting us the closest we’ve ever been to passing major health care reform legislation and laying the ground work for even bigger fights for transformational change in America.”
The Community Change Champions Award was established by the Center in 2005 to recognize champions from diverse fields — philanthropy, the arts, academia, public service, and community organizing – who work to focus attention on and change the conditions that create poverty, and who build power in communities of color. Perhaps the award’s most famous recipient is President Barrack Obama who was awarded a Community Change Champions Award while serving his first year in the United States Senate.
Congressman Tom Perriello from Virginia’s 5th Congressional District presented the Virginia Organizing Project with their award.
“We are honored to accept the Community Change Champions Award on behalf of the communities we serve across the state of Virginia. Giving people a voice who traditionally have no voice makes all of us stronger. We appreciate this honor and will continue to build relationships with a wide variety of people for the betterment of Virginia and the nation,” said Janice “Jay” Johnson, Chairperson of the Virginia Organizing Project.
For more information about the Community Change Champions Award: http://www.communitychange.org/champions.
