At the age of 31, Aja Brown became the youngest mayor in the history of Compton, California. Elected in 2013, Brown previously served over 10 years as an urban planner in municipalities across Southern California. She was elected to office on her 12 point plan, “Vision For Compton,” that focused on gang violence and bringing new jobs into the city.
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Alec Karakatsanis was honored with the 2023 New Frontier Award for his work advancing pretrial justice across the nation, which has led local and state jurisdictions to shift their approach to
Carlos Curbelo, 37, represents Florida’s 26th Congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he serves on the influential House Ways and Means Committee. He was elected to the House in 2014.
Charles Best is Founder and CEO of DonorsChoose.org, an online charity that enables individuals to provide direct support to teachers and students in public schools. Best founded DonorsChoose.org at Wings Academy, a public high school in the Bronx where he taught social studies for five years. He came up with the idea during a conversation in the teachers’ lunch room, and his students volunteered to help start the organization.
Chokwe Antar Lumumba made history in 2017 when he became the youngest person to be elected mayor of Jackson, Mississippi. While in office, Mayor Lumumba has focused on expanding Jackson’s digital
Read the New Frontier Award ® announcement Background Christina Mansfield is the co-executive director of Freedom for Immigrants, formerly Community Initiatives for Visiting Immigrants in Confinement
When Cory A. Booker, 39, took the oath of office as mayor of New Jersey’s largest city on July 1, 2006, he assumed the leadership of a city plagued by crime and economic blight. Booker immediately launched a “100-Day Plan” to improve public safety, develop the economy, and reform city government.
Read the New Frontier Award ® announcement Background Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Cyrus Habib moved with his family to Washington state at the age of eight. He grew up in east King County and
During his five years in public office as a member of the Los Angeles City Council, including serving as President of the City Council in his second term, Eric Garcetti has taken on some of the city’s most pressing public problems including affordable housing, environmental issues, and economic development.
Giovanna Negretti, 37, is the co-founder and executive director of Oiste?, established in 1999 to provide Massachusetts Latinos with the tools and training to enter public service. The organization was founded in response to concern about the underrepresentation of Latinos in public decision making roles. While its original goal was to provide non-partisan campaigning workshops to Latinos who planned to seek public office, Oiste’s mission quickly expanded to include civic education, leadership development and advocacy.
Hector Balderas, 37, was elected State Auditor of New Mexico in 2006, making him the youngest Hispanic statewide elected official in the United States at age 33. On taking office, Balderas worked to change the longstanding perception among state agencies that their expenditures would go unexamined and that mistakes and misconduct would be allowed to slide. Despite a limited budget, a small staff, and widespread resistance from agencies uncomfortable with having their books scrutinized, Balderas fought to create a culture of accountability in New Mexico.
Jane Leu, 37, Founder and Executive Director of Upwardly Global, a nonprofit organization that helps legal immigrants reclaim their professional careers in the United States and assists employers in tapping into the talents and skills of foreign-born professionals, was honored with the 2006 John F. Kennedy New Frontier Award for a non-elected individual whose contributions in the realm of community service, advocacy or grassroots activism have had a positive impact on a broad public policy issue or challenge.
Jasmine Davenport (formerly Sanders) is a climate scientist, strategist, advocate and native of Monroe, Louisiana. Guided by her southern roots and seeing the impact of climate change on the Gulf
Jay Williams made history in November, 2005 when he became the youngest and the first African-American Mayor of Youngstown, Ohio. A former banker who left the corporate world to serve as director of the city’s community development agency, Williams staked his mayoral candidacy on an unusual and politically bold plan to revitalize the city.
In 2000, then a 19-year-old sophomore at Yale, Jennifer Staple-Clark took a summer work position as a clinical researcher of glaucoma in the office of her childhood ophthalmologist in New Haven, Connecticut. She was shocked by what she saw there: scores of low-income and homeless patients whose glaucoma had needlessly progressed into blindness. Over and over, she would hear the regret of patients who wished they had visited an eye doctor sooner. She felt compelled to do something.
Congressman Joe Neguse was honored with the 2023 New Frontier Award for his work to restore hope in our democratic institutions. By successfully forging pragmatic, bipartisan legislative coalitions
About the Awards For 20 years the John F. Kennedy New Frontier Awards® honored Americans under the age of 40 who were changing their communities and the country with their commitment to public service
In 1999, at the age of 30, Karen Carter beat out a diverse field of candidates to fill the legislative seat of Louisiana civil rights legend Rev. Avery C. Alexander. Her legislative district encompasses the heart of New Orleans and during her first year as a legislator, her colleagues selected Representative Carter as “Rookie of the Year.”
When 38-year-old Kica Matos became Executive Director of JUNTA for Progressive Action, she accepted the leadership of the oldest Latino community service organization in New Haven, Connecticut. But prior to her arrival, JUNTA had fallen into disrepair, even as New Haven’s Latino population surged in number and need. In a few short years, Ms. Matos has transformed JUNTA into a model service provider and a powerful community force, expanding the organization’s mission and programs and multiplying its client base with each passing year.
Kirsten Lodal co-founded LIFT, an innovative anti-poverty nonprofit, during her sophomore year at Yale University. While volunteering in Head Start programs focused on at-risk children, Lodal was struck by the lack of comprehensive support services available to the parents of the children she served.
Lateefah Simon, 33, has advocated tirelessly on behalf of communities of color, youth and women since her teenage years. At age 15, she joined the Center for Young Women's Development, an outreach organization led by young women to provide peer-to-peer support to at-risk girls and young women in San Francisco. Simon began as a volunteer and eventually became a staff member at the Center, where she worked to help homeless, low-income and incarcerated young women transform and rebuild their lives.
Background Judge Lina Hidalgo’s family fled their home country of Colombia as gang violence ravaged the country. Her parents had two goals: to make sure she had a good education and to get the family
When she took her oath of office in 2003, Lisa Madigan became the first woman ever to hold the position of Illinois Attorney General. At the age of 39, she serves as the state’s chief consumer advocate and law enforcement officer.
In 2003, at the age of 23, Luke Ravenstahl became the youngest person ever elected to the Pittsburgh City Council. In 2005, he became City Council president, and ten months later, after the untimely death of then-mayor Bob O’Connor, Ravenstahl was sworn in as Pittsburgh’s 58th mayor. He was 26 years old, and Pittsburgh was on the brink of bankruptcy.