As the academic year drew to a close, the Harward Center for Community Partnerships celebrated the strength of the college’s engagement with the Lewiston–Auburn community with a string of grants and awards.

This year, the Harward Center awarded grants of $16,322.50 to five community organizations that support refugees and asylum seekers: Maine Immigrant and Refugee Services, Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project, Asylum Seekers Resettlement Program, St. Mary’s Nutrition Center, and Trinity Jubilee Center.

The grants are funded by the endowed James W. Carignan ’61 and Sally Larson Carignan ’62 Fund for Community Programs, which has distributed over $150,000 worth of grants to local community organizations since its establishment.

The fund honors the legacy of the former Bates dean of the college and his wife, whose commitment to community engagement and civic leadership shaped the way that Bates interacts with and supports its local community. 

In that sense, says Jenna Dela Cruz Vendil ’06, the Harward Center’s associate director of democratic engagement and student activism, “the Carignan Fund is part of a larger ecosystem of relationships and programs that connect Bates with the off-campus community in mutually beneficial ways.”

When a Carignan grant helps strengthen a local organization, “that organization is in a better position to provide learning opportunities for Bates students.”

This year’s Carignan grants will provide much-needed funds to local nonprofits that recently lost some federal funding, helping them to support “more than 100 new refugees, vetted and relocated here by the government, with immediate needs such as food, housing, and transition support.”

Additionally, on May 5, the Harward Center hosted its 2025 Community Partnerships Awards Celebration, honoring 20 individuals and four organizations and partnerships in recognition of their excellent achievement in community engagement.

“These individuals and organizations have helped move the needle on any number of initiatives, from affordable housing to food security to youth development,” says Darby Ray, the director of the Harward Center and the Donald W. and Ann M. Harward professor of civic engagement. 

“In every instance, their work is making a tangible positive difference in our shared community. For Bates students, the chance to work with local leaders to move community goals forward while also building real-world skills like collaborative problem-solving and cross-cultural communication is often a highlight of their college years.”

Student and student groups who received awards are:

• Inez Johnson ’25 and Maggie Kornfeind ’25, recipients of the 2025 Award for Outstanding Academic Community Engagement
• Maria Femia ’25, Madi Mettler ’25, and Lily Houser ’25; Poppy Marsh ’26, Eva McDonough ’25, and Olivia Reynolds ’25, recipients of the 2025 Award for Outstanding Community Volunteerism and Student Leadership
• Sam Skinner ’26, recipient of the 2025 Civic Leadership Award
• Maggie Amann ’25, recipient of the 2025 Student Activism Award
• Ananya Rao ’25, recipient of the 2025 Peggy Rotundo Award for Excellence in Democratic Engagement
• Natalie Gersen ’28 and Luca Balzano ’28, recipients of the 2025 Award for Outstanding Community Engagement by a First Year Student (“Rookie of the Year” Award)
• Students for Justice in Palestine Club and Men’s Lacrosse Team, recipients of the 2025 Award for Outstanding Community Engagement by a Club/Team
• Annie Robinson ’26, recipient of the 2025 Campus Compact Newman Civic Fellowship
• Sakina Saidi ’26, recipient of the 2025 Imagining America Joy of Giving Something (JGS) Fellowship
• Carmen Liang ’26, recipient of the 2025 Professor Leland and Claudina Bechtel Award
• Ella Beiser ’25, recipient of the 2025 Robert S. Moyer Award for the Prevention of Domestic Violence

Faculty and staff members who received awards are:

• Whitehouse Professor of Psychology Amy Bradfield Douglass, recipient of the Faculty Award for Outstanding Community-Engaged Work
• Assistant Vice President for Human Resources Patty Rooney, recipient of the Staff Award for Community Volunteerism, Leadership, or Engagement

Lewiston–Auburn community partners and projects who received awards are:

• Sonia Turgeon, the operations manager of the Center for Wisdom’s Women, recipient of the James and Sally Carignan Career Achievement Award
• Rosati and Bates, a partnership between Rosati Leadership Academy and the college, recipient of the Award for Outstanding Community Partnership
• “Ka Bogso” (Somali for “Be Healed”), a collaborative visual art and psychological theory project, recipient of the Award for Outstanding Community Project