The Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Center presented its 2026 Keeper of the Dream awards Monday at its annual meeting, before a capacity crowd in the center’s community room.
Gail Jacobs received the Keeper of the Dream Award. She served on the committee for the center’s Building Hope campaign, which raised $7 million in eight months, and helped launch the DreamKeepers planned giving society in 2025. During that year’s 401Gives campaign, the center raised $205,014 — the second-highest total among 705 Rhode Island nonprofits — an effort the center credited in part to her.
Newport Mental Health’s Rhode Island Outreach team received the Keeper of the Dream Community Partner award. The team visits the center regularly, providing mental health and substance use care to MLK clients. Newport Mental Health and the MLK are founding members of The Situation Table, a coalition of first responders and nonprofits serving the county’s most vulnerable residents, and the two organizations work together to run an overnight warming center for unhoused residents during the winter.
Liz Davis received the Content of Character award. Davis has given more than 800 volunteer hours at the center, working in the kitchen and stocking the food pantry.
“We were faced with unique challenges and obstacles this year,” Heather Hole Strout, the center’s executive director, said in a statement. “With cuts to SNAP benefits, historic snowfall, and rising prices of groceries and fuel, our programs are becoming more critical than ever in our community.”
The center also reported on the past year, announced changes to its board of trustees and recognized staff milestones at the meeting.
The MLK Community Center served more than 9,000 people last year, the most in its history.
