ENA Awards Dupuis Community Excellence Award Greater Meredith Program

Press release from ENA:

ExcellenceNorth Alliance (ENA) has presented the “Dr. Sylvio Dupuis Community Excellence Award” to the Greater Meredith Community in recognition of its advancement of the vision for the area to be a year-round business, recreational and social hub for residents, workforce, and visitors. The award honors Dr. Dupuis’ lifelong work to improve communities for the benefit of the citizens and families in New Hampshire. ENA presented the Award at the Greater Meredith Program annual meeting on January 20th, 2023.

The vision has been fostered by the Greater Meredith Program (GMP), a community-based development organization with the mission to enhance economic vitality, historical and cultural heritage, and town-wide beautification. The GMP encourages and guides the community - individuals, businesses and groups - to ignite a volunteer spirit, be creative, find niches of community service, and assume responsibility to move on their ideas. Through this approach the GMP has built a Board of Directors, committees, and community campaigns that reach out to all who want to support community activities and facilitating ways to coordinate their visions with others in the community. This demonstrates the GMP belief that everyone can do better today than yesterday; everyone can learn more tomorrow than today; everyone can offer something to the community if we open the channels.

“From the Meredith sculpture walk to the career partnership program, I believe our volunteer-driven effort reflects the true community spirit of our entire state and we are honored to be recognized as a Sylvio Dupuis Community of Excellence Award recipient and a possible model for other cities and towns to follow as a successful approach to balancing work, play, economic development and preservation,” says Mike Griffin, Executive Director of Greater Meredith Program. “We have robust participation from a wide variety of community leaders and volunteers and that is what makes the difference for us. It’s a team effort all the way.”

“Meredith reflects the spirit of this award and the legacy of Dr. Dupuis,” explained Tom Raffio, Chair of ENA’s Board of Directors and President & CEO of Northeast Delta Dental. “The results from the efforts of the Greater Meredith Program and Community speak for themselves. Their work to promote the arts and nature while also building a healthy and robust area economy with real partnerships for career advancement is inspiring. We can all learn from the activities and lessons offered by these wonderful men and women in Meredith.”

Creating a vision, purpose and values along with promoting legal and ethical behavior is a Sylvio Dupuis trademark and a driving reason behind the creation of a statewide award in his name. The Community Excellence Award is designed to recognize and raise awareness of communities in New Hampshire, that through ingenuity and innovation, are making improvements that benefit economic conditions, quality of life, education, and/or public health. In this award, communities are not limited by boundaries and are defined as a group of people working together with a common goal to provide these benefits to a city/town, neighborhood, or region. The goal is to not only recognize these communities but to share with and encourage other communities to follow suit.

“It is a high honor for my name to adorn this award, but as made clear by the remarkable efforts and collaborations in Meredith, there is no one person who can receive credit for results in a community; rather it is the collective effort of many hands and hearts, driven to improve their world and the lives of others that makes a lasting impact,” says Dr. Sylvio Dupuis, former Manchester Mayor and namesake of the annual award. “Meredith is doing something special and doing it right.”

“This award exemplifies ENA’s purpose to help Northern New England organizations and communities develop, grow, and sustainably thrive.” said ENA Executive Director Anne Warner. “We see examples of how community leaders, businesses, and volunteers collaborate for the benefit of a community and believe that by supporting, recognizing, and sharing these stories, others across the state and region will be inspired to do the same. We are deeply impressed by the progress and successes of Greater Meredith Community.”

Northeast Delta Dental (NEDD) is the sponsor of the 2022 Dr. Sylvio Dupuis Community Excellence Award, in honor of the former Mayor’s lifetime of dedicated service to causes great and small. Dr. Dupuis is a former president of both Catholic Medical Center and Notre Dame College and has served on countless nonprofit boards and various community-centered initiatives. NEDD President and CEO Tom Raffio has cited Dr. Dupuis as a professional mentor with a living legacy of helping New Hampshire in a variety of ways.

This press release was produced by ENA. The views expressed here are the author's own.