Nine honored with MLK Jr. Community Service Awards

During the virtual Martin Luther King Jr. Community Service Awards Ceremony held Jan. 14, Johns Hopkins honored eight staff members and one high school student for demonstrating Dr. King's values of service, equality, and selflessness through their volunteerism. Click on their names to learn about their outstanding volunteer work.

• Barbara Bates-Hopkins, senior community engagement coordinator, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
• Todd Dousa, emergency management manager, Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center
• Aleesha Eccleston, high school student, Johns Hopkins University Summer Jobs Program
• Phoebe Evans Letocha, collections management archivist, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
• Zhiling Li, network engineer III, Johns Hopkins Health System
• Michael Preston, director of Community Affairs, Johns Hopkins University
• Charles Reuland, executive vice president/chief operating officer, Johns Hopkins Hospital
• Nanette Smith, program lead, Johns Hopkins University, Bloomberg Philanthropies
• Daniel Washington, surgical technician, Johns Hopkins Hospital

Also honored at the ceremony was Denis Antoine, assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, who received the 2022 Levi Watkins Jr. Ideal Award.

Watkins, who died in 2015, was the first black chief resident of cardiac surgery at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and in 1980 made medical history by implanting the first automatic heart defibrillator in a patient. He launched the MLK commemoration event in 1982 to honor the man who was his pastor and mentor while he grew up in segregated Montgomery, Alabama.

Read more about the MLK Jr. Community Service Awards ceremony here.