PBHA gives out awards at celebration

The Phillips Brooks House Association (PBHA) held its fifth annual Public Service Celebration this past Monday (May 8) in Lowell House dining hall. Two hundred students deeply committed and involved in public service activities attended the event, along with faculty, staff, and PBHA supporters.

The program celebrated public service accomplishments of the past year and included awards to graduating seniors and outstanding volunteers. Three Stride Rite Post-Graduate Fellowships and the Stride Rite Senior Recognition Awards were given out, along with Houston-Moreland Awards and Spirit of PBHA Awards.

The Stride Rite awards were established in 1983 by the Stride Rite Foundation to provide training and skills development for students of diverse economic and social backgrounds to become leaders in their communities, both as undergraduates and beyond. The awards are given only to current seniors at Harvard College.

The Stride Rite Post-Graduate Fellowship awards up to $25,000 to graduating Harvard seniors to fund a yearlong public service project. This year’s recipients include Rachel Bolden-Kramer, HeeWon Lee, and Jasmine Zhang.

Bolden-Kramer will return to the Bay Area in California to build a curriculum and program that addresses the needs of young lesbian, bisexual, and transgender women of color, bringing participants to the understanding of how those needs relate to marginalization along the lines of race, gender, sexuality, and economic justice. She will work in conjunction with the young women’s program that she was a part of as a youth. Lee will continue to work with the Codman Square Community Health Center in Dorchester to support a volunteer program and expand it to an after-school program. Lastly, Zhang will develop a student-based program to meet the language-specific needs of legal aid organizations in the London Chinatown community. She will coordinate a program similar to the Chinatown Small Claims Advisory Services (her undergraduate public service organization).