Hannah Lin and Sheryl Manolakos of YWCA Muskoka are national award recipients.
During the 132nd Annual General Meeting of YWCA Canada last week, YWCA Muskoka’s Hannah Lin received the Carolyn B. Bray Award, and Sheryl Manolakos received the Agnes Amelia Blizzard Award.
“The Carolyn B. Bray Award from the YWCA Canada movement means a lot because I knew Carolyn. She was a member of the Muskoka community for many, many years and was the first executive director for our YWCA here in Muskoka,” Lin said. “I have received the award for spirit, dedication, and creativity. It means a lot, for all the work that I’ve done, but in the legacy of her accomplishments.”
Lin has been with YWCA for 18 years and worked with Carolyn during her first four.
“I think Carolyn’s work, particularly, was to reach out and include boys and men in the solutions for gender-based violence prevention,” said Lin. “My role, and the reason I got the award, was because we’ve continued and built so many youth programs in the schools and summer programs that are about violence prevention and lifting other people up.”
Lin said for Manolakos, she got her award for decades of “incredible work as a volunteer.”
“She received that award for 30 years of service to the organization. She was our first chair. She was among the first 20 women that said ‘hey, we need a women’s serving organization in Muskoka’,” Lin said.
Lin said it is great for the organization to be recognized with the awards as the YWCA of Muskoka is “the smallest of 28 YWCA across Canada.”
“And we just hosted the national meeting,” said Lin. “132 years of YWCA in Canada, and all the members were in Muskoka this past week, experiencing what it’s like to be here and shows that we can lift up others. And we’ve been lifting up girls and women and gender-diverse people for many years.”
“We know we do good work, but to receive an award from others is people saying, ‘I see you. We see you. We see the good work you are doing, and we believe that you have the capacity to keep doing more.”
Lin added she is grateful to all their volunteers and staff and to the people they are working with in the community.
