Loyola to receive 2018 Mayor’s Business Recognition Award for York Road Initiative

Loyola University Maryland will be one of 12 organizations to receive the 2018 Mayor’s Business Recognition Award from the Greater Baltimore Committee. This annual award is given to companies who demonstrate leadership and promote community service to help improve the city. Loyola applied and received this award for the York Road Initiative's ongoing work with food security through the farmers' market and FreshCrate program.

Loyola's York Road Initiative is a place-based community development strategy geographically focused in the Greater Govans/York Road corridor communities of north Baltimore City adjacent to the University's Evergreen campus. Through the York Road Initiative, Loyola collaborates with neighbors and partners to produce positive change for all residents in the York Road community, working to improve education and youth development, while also building civic capacity and strengthening the York Road commercial corridor.

“Through the York Road Initiative, Loyola has had the opportunity to partner with our closest neighbors in our city to strengthen those communities and Baltimore," said Rev. Brian F. Linnane, S.J., president, who will accept the award on behalf of Loyola. "I am grateful to all our community partners who work alongside us to help make a difference in their neighborhoods and in so many individuals' lives." 

Loyola will be honored at the 44th Annual Mayor’s Business Recognition Awards luncheon on Wednesday, Dec. 5, 2018, at 11:30 a.m. at the Renaissance Baltimore Harborplace Hotel. The award will be presented by Mayor Catherine Pugh, the Greater Baltimore Committee, and the Baltimore Development Corporation.

The York Road Initiative grew from a conversation that began when Fr. Linnane designated the 2006-2007 academic year as "The Year of the City." After the Year of the City, Loyola launched the "Loyola Is Listening" initiative to partner with the communities along York Road to identify needs and hopes for those neighborhoods and learn how Loyola could help strengthen them. Since then, the University has created a strategy to support those areas, investing financially and through the talents of faculty, students, staff, and administrators, who work to support local residents, schools, and businesses along the corridor.

The Mayor’s Business Recognition Awards, which has recognized companies for more than four decades, aims to honor corporations who participate in projects or activities that have benefitted the Baltimore community and are not part of the business’s regular work initiatives.

“As we look at the ways in which we are contributing to the city and community, we have to remain on the forefront of making a change for and in collaboration with our community. It’s about recommitting ourselves and being innovative in the ways,” said Robert Kelly, Ph.D., vice president and special assistant to the president.