The Baltimore Ravens have selected their 2020 Community Quarterback Award recipients. Funded by the NFL Foundation, the Ravens Foundation, Inc. and T. Rowe Price, the award honors individuals who exhibit leadership, dedication and commitment to bettering their local communities. Recognizing the urgent need among many nonprofits and community heroes during the COVID-19 pandemic, this year, T. Rowe Price partnered with the Ravens to double the number of recipients of the Community Quarterback Award from five to 10.
The honorees will be recognized during Ravens Pregame Live on Monday, Dec. 7, when the Ravens host the Dallas Cowboys. Each Community Quarterback winner will receive a personalized Ravens jersey, a commemorative award and $2,500 grant from T. Rowe Price to help aid their respective nonprofit organization.
2020 Community Quarterback Winners:
Lana Anderson – Small Things Matter
Anderson is the president and founder of Small Things Matter, a nonprofit whose mission is to help underserved youth and their families with food, literacy and crafting for charity programs. At just 16 years old, Anderson helps to lead the organization that distributes 4,000 brand new books each year, as well as 100,000 pounds of food supporting 1,000 families, two to four times each month. The program provides fresh produce, non-perishable foods, hot meals, handmade cloth masks and toiletries to those in need in Silver Spring, Takoma Park and Rockville, Maryland.
Aaron Augustine – Leukemia & Lymphoma Society
At eight months old, Augustine was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia Cancer. While he was given less than a 30% chance to survive, now, 16-year-old Augustine is in remission and is the proud face of the Leukemia Lymphoma Society (LLS) Pennies for Patients campaign. In his six years of involvement, Augustine has designed, promoted and sold "Knights Out Cancer" socks, spoken at school assemblies across Maryland and participated in numerous fundraising campaigns. His efforts raised $140,000 over seven weeks, which funded two Pediatric Acute Myeloid Leukemia Research Projects.
Linda Carney – LifeStyles of Maryland Foundation, Inc.
Since 2013, Carney has been a certified volunteer tax preparer with LifeStyles of Maryland Foundation, Inc., an organization that provides compassionate programs and services that meet the needs of those who are underserved in the community. In her role, she has contributed more than 4,000 hours in free federal and state tax services where she directly prepared 1,643 tax returns. Through her efforts, Carney has helped serve 469 households, which received combined total federal refunds of $539,452.
Tyde-Courtney Edwards – FORCE: Upsetting Rape Culture
In conjunction with FORCE: Upsetting Rape Culture, Edwards started "Ballet After Dark," a free holistic therapy program for survivors of sexual and domestic assault. The nine-month program encourages women, and those who identify as women, to refocus trauma into triumph through ballet fundamentals, athletic conditioning, empowering mantras and quarterly workshops from guest speakers and mental health professionals. Born and raised in Baltimore, Edwards, a classically trained ballerina, art model and survivor of sexual assault, has grown the program internationally into Mexico City, and was also able to share her story through a 2019 Tribeca Film Festival feature produced by Queen Latifah.
Danny Farrar – Platoon 22
A former firefighter, EMT and an eight-year veteran, Farrar created Platoon 22 to combat the ever-rising veteran suicide rate. Farrar enlisted in the Army directly out of high school and served over 800 missions in a combat zone in Iraq. Under his leadership, Platoon 22 has set out to build a multi-million-dollar, 20,000 square foot services center that acts as a one-stop shop for veterans and their families. The facility will offer support to a variety of needs, including job training/placement, counseling, mental health services, physical health services, VA benefits navigation, housing programs, transportation services and financial education.
John Fry – Community Action Council of Howard County
Since retiring over a decade ago, Fry has made volunteering his full-time job. The Community Action Council of Howard County serves low-income Howard County residents through four core program areas including; food assistance, energy and weatherization assistance, housing assistance and early childhood education. This year, Fry has collected and delivered 30,000 pounds of food between the Howard County Food Bank and the Grassroots Day Resource Center. Fry's community efforts do not end with the Howard County Food Bank, as he also volunteers for Neighbor Ride, a neighborhood transportation outlet to support elderly residents.
Abdul Hadi Winder – Corner Team, Inc.
Since the program's inception in 2019, Winder has completed over 1,500 volunteer hours as an Assistant Coach of Corner Team, Inc.; a free, after school and summer boxing program that strives to improve academic performance, encourage healthy and active lifestyles and build strong communities of engaged citizens. In addition to his efforts in the ring, Winder, a former boxer himself, serves as the club's maintenance man, leading several construction projects around the once vacant warehouse.
Dave Hall – The Image Center of MD
Hall, a retired mechanical engineer, has twice been named "Volunteer of the Year" during his six years supporting Volunteers of Medical Engineering at The Image Center of MD. The center is a resource hub and independent living center that strives to provide solutions for individuals with disabilities to live more independently. At 73 years old, Hall creates customized devices, including walkers, rollators, bikes and cribs for individuals with disabilities.
Bob Signor – Special Olympics Maryland
Since 2012, Signor has logged thousands of hours volunteering as a coach, administer, organizer and volunteer for Special Olympics Maryland. In his role, Signor has supported several sports throughout the year, including basketball, bocce, flag football, kayaking, sailing and soccer. While working nights and weekends, Signor has done everything from recruiting hundreds of new athletes, to scheduling competition facilities, to personally driving team members and helping bring new sports into the Special Olympics programming.
Leo Zerhusen – HOPE For All
In 2004, alongside his wife, Diane, Zerhusen founded HOPE For All. The organization's goal is to create a multi-faceted program that provides basic necessities to families and individuals without sufficient economic resources. Through programs like "Turning Houses into Homes," which provides basic furniture needs to those living in substandard conditions, "Head to Toe," which clothes school aged children and families, as well as "Next Step Clothing," which provides coats and hygiene products to people in crisis, including those in recovery from addiction, the homeless and individuals who are formerly incarcerated. HOPE For All has supported over 20,000 individuals in need.
About the Ravens Foundation, Inc.
The Ravens Foundation is committed to improving, encouraging and enabling the healthy development of youth in the Baltimore area, as well as other parts of the state of Maryland. The foundation focuses on programs that help youth, and in some cases their families, with various needs, including housing, hunger, education, athletics and mentoring.
Please visit www.BaltimoreRavens.com/community for more information.
About T. Rowe Price
Founded in 1937, Baltimore-based T. Rowe Price Group, Inc. is a global investment management organization with $1.30 trillion in assets under management as of October 31, 2020. The organization provides a broad array of mutual funds, subadvisory services, and separate account management for individual and institutional investors, retirement plans, and financial intermediaries. The company also offers a variety of sophisticated investment planning and guidance tools. T. Rowe Price's disciplined, risk-aware investment approach focuses on diversification, style consistency, and fundamental research. For more information, visit troweprice.com or our Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook sites.
