Congratulations To Our 2024 Annual Celebration Honorees
Triangle’s Celebration event is coming up next month on Thursday, April 25th. While many things are changing about this year’s event – new location, menu, and format – we will still recognize some of our most valued partners during an awards ceremony. This year’s winners are (drumroll please)….
Essex County District Attorney Paul Tucker will receive the 2024 Public Official of the Year Award for his longtime support of Triangle and the entire disability community throughout his career in public service. As a law enforcement officer and chief of police of the Salem Police Department, then eight years of representing North Shore communities in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, Paul has been an engaged community partner for Triangle and an advocate for enhanced support and funding for the disability community. His support of bills and funding helped provide increased payment to families of people with disabilities who provide in-home care for their loved one. He has also been an advocate for abuse prevention programming for children, elders, and people with disabilities. Paul now serves as the District Attorney of Essex County, a position he was elected to in 2022. Previous winners of this award include Sens. Sal DiDomenico, Joan Lovel, and Jason Lewis, Reps. Steve Ultrino and Dan Ryan, then-Mayor (now Lt. Governor) Kim Driscoll, and former Speaker of the House Robert DeLeo.
The 2024 Carmella Gregorie Disability Advocate Award will be presented to Save the Harbor/Save the Bay, a public nonprofit advocacy organization to restore, protect, and enhance Boston Harbor and its beaches. Since 2018, Triangle, Inc. has partnered with Save the Harbor/Save the Bay to promote and enhance inclusion of people with disabilities at the beach through their Better Beaches program, which provides funding to local nonprofit organizations to hold events and projects during the summer months each year. This includes Triangle’s annual Beach:Ability event, which brings hundreds of program participants, staff, families, and community members to Constitution Beach each summer for a day of accessible fun. Beach:Ability includes sand and floating wheelchairs, music, games and activities, and more all through the generosity of Save the Harbor/Save the Bay. Their efforts go beyond this single event and include a tremendous amount of advocacy for community inclusion at the State House. In 2023, Save the Harbor/Save the Bay released “Breaking Barriers: Improving Public Access to the Metropolitan Beaches,” which was simultaneously a culmination of the previous 18-months’ worth of information-gathering and public hearings and a jumping off point for newly engaged communities to have an active role in beach access moving forward. This project included specific hearings on disability access and recommendations made by Triangle and other program partners, including the formation of the Beach Accessibility Advisory Committee.
Once again, we would like to thank both District Attorney Paul Tucker and Save the Harbor/Save the Bay for their dedication and support of the entire disability community. We are excited and grateful to honor them at this year’s Celebration, and we hope to see you all on April 25th at Olio. Click here to register today!