New Haven Independent

The event was a United Way awards dinner. This year the event focused on New Haven people and organizations helping “citizens to connect with their community.”

That fits in with a special effort United Way has been making to nurture projects that foster what in the current lexicon is known as “civic engagement.” It means getting people to do stuff with each other to make their community better (rather than, say, sitting at home watching TV).

Patti Scussel (pictured) has been doing that in New Haven long before social scientists and we journalist types discovered the “civic engagement” phrase. Every year, through her job at the Chamber of Commerce, she brings together youngish professionals poised to ascend to the top ranks of civic leaders. She organizes an academy called Leadership Greater New Haven. The participants meet community big-shots and innovators to learn how New Haven works. They also meet each other and throw around ideas.

One of the promising citizen engagers to go through Scussel School was Joanne Byrne (pictured). While there, Byrne met people from Hartford who’d found a way to organize senior citizens into a group that drew on their expertise to tackle city challenges. Since then, Byrne, with United Way’s help, has done that in the town of Orange with a new group called Orange Senior Leadership. The group has already put together a computer center and a “senior tax stabilization plan” to help over-55s stay in their homes.

At Thursday night’s ceremony United Way gave Byrne (whose daughter, Emily, is also a citizen engager, in New Haven’s mayor’s office) and Orange Senior Leadership the “Building Bridges Award.”

Yale University’s Diane Turner (pictured) won the “Community Champions Award” along with her employer. She has led drives collecting over 4,000 (not a typo) books for New Haven Reads.

Experience Corps of Greater New Haven won the “Creating Change Award,” while city government and the Board of Ed took the “Raise Hope” honor for leading United Way fund drives.

United Way gave “special recognition” to a host of other groups toiling in the civic engagement fields, including the Diaper Bank, All Our Kin, Caring Cuisine, STRIVE, Clifford Beers, Yale-New Haven Hospital, the public library, Voices for Children, the water authority, and the New Haven Independent (thank you!).