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Pioneer Valley Project names this year's MICAH award winners

Date: 2/3/2009

By Ayo Babatunde

Staff Intern



SPRINGFIELD On Jan. 31, the Pioneer Valley Project (PVP) conducted its annual dinner to honor this year's MICAH (Ministry In Community Action Honoree) award winners at the Sinai Temple on Dickinson Street.

The PVP is a non-profit coalition of churches, synagogues, labor unions and community groups working for social change. The coalition works to relieve conditions of poverty, racism, discrimination and unemployment.

Started in 1997, it currently has 26 member organizations from all over Hampshire, Hampden and Franklin counties.

According to Fred Rose, PVP's staff director and lead organizer, "We work on quality of life issues and other problems that our member organizations identify as concerns for them. We've worked on issues ranging from affordable housing, education, public safety, to job training...The goal is to bring together people from many different parts of the community together, so we are a very diverse organization.

"The MICAH award is a way to recognize people who are making a contribution to their community," he continued. "We've used the saying by the prophet Micah (do justly, love mercy and walk humbly with God) as a framework to ask our member organizations to nominate people who have really lived up to that. That is the basis for the Micah award."

Kevin McCarthy, from Holy Cross Parish was one of this year's MICAH award winners. Holy Cross is one of PVP's member organizations. McCarthy's work with Holy Cross includes serving for several years as chair of the Pastoral Council and serving as a confirmation teacher. McCarthy also initiated sister parish projects with the St. Bartholomew Church in Chapis, Mexico.

Holy Cross's Deacon Bill Toller submitted McCarthy's nomination for the MICAH award. According to Toller, "Kevin is a perfect example of what the PVP is trying to accomplish...At Holy Cross church he is a shining example of what it means to make a difference in the lives of the poor."

McCarthy says that his passion for community service has been longstanding.

"Right out of college I was a volunteer for a year with a program called the Jesuit Volunteer Corp," he explained. "That was a key turning point for me. Since then I've tried to be involved with service in one community or another.

"When people pull together you can really make an impact in the community," McCarthy continued. "It's always nice to be recognized and to have people notice what you do."

Other MICAH award honorees for this year include: Luis Manuel P rez from Blessed Sacrament Parish and All Souls Church; Utako Dwyer from Christ Church Cathedral; Katrelia Bryan from Greater New Life Christian Center; Marion Johnson from Holy Family Parish; Sister Patricia Mcray-Davis from Mt. Calvary Baptist Church; Tim Collins from Pioneer Valley Labor Council International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 7; Eurius Redfield from Service Employees International Union 1199; Bobi Steingart from Sinai Temple; Nancy deProsse from Springfield Education Association; Keri Dietz from Unitarian Unerversialist Society of Greater Springfield; and Tyrone C. Housey from United Food and Commercial Workers 1459.

For more information on PVP, log onto www.pioneervp.org.