The Monika Andrews Award Deserved Better
There is a plaque in the lobby of Brockport Village Hall. Each year, a new name is engraved on it, the name of a community volunteer selected by a committee of their peers to receive the Monika W. Andrews Creative Volunteer Leadership Award. It is a small plaque in a modest hallway, but it represents something enormous: the enduring legacy of a woman who gave herself to this community, and the ongoing promise that her memory will be honored by lifting up those who continue her work.
That promise was nearly broken this year. And the community deserves to know why.
The Monika Andrews Award was created by Dr. Bill Andrews, Sr., in memory of his late wife, whose volunteer spirit shaped so much of what makes Brockport a community worth fighting for. At Dr. Andrews’ request, the award has been housed at the Village since its inception. For over a decade, the process has been consistent and meaningful: an independent selection committee identifies the year’s recipient and provides their selection to the Village Board. The award is then presented at a public Village Board meeting. The winner, their family, Dr. Andrews himself, and the committee are all invited to attend. A letter from the committee is read aloud by a committee member or, if one is unavailable, by the mayor, highlighting not only the winner but also the runners-up and the breadth of volunteerism taking place quietly throughout our community. Photos are taken. The check, generously endowed by Dr. Andrews, is presented. In past administrations, the recipient was also highlighted in the Village newsletter. The plaque is updated. The community celebrates together.
This is not a complicated tradition. It is a beautiful one. It costs nothing but a willingness to show up.
This year, Mayor Ben Reed and certain board members chose not to present the award, not because they were unavailable, but because of their personal feelings toward this year’s recipient.
Let that sink in. The mayor of Brockport and members of the Village Board declined to present a community volunteer award, an award created by and named for a beloved Brockport resident, an award that belongs to this community, because of who was selected to receive it. No public acknowledgment. No invitation to the recipient’s family. No letter read. No ceremony. In place of over a decade of meaningful tradition, this year’s recipient received a single-sentence letter in the mail that read, “Congratulations! You have been selected as the recipient of the 2025-2026 Monika W. Andrews Creative Volunteer Leadership Award.”
Only after being pressured by members of the public, nominators, and the award committee itself was the presentation incorporated into the meeting at the last minute, as an afterthought rather than the celebration it has always been and should always be. The presentation was nothing more than a statement read by the awards committee, nothing from the Mayor or Village Board.
This is not a story about one volunteer. This is a story about what it means when elected officials allow personal grievances to override their public responsibilities. When the mayor and board members in positions of trust decide that their feelings about a person matter more than the legacy of Monika Andrews, they are not just slighting one individual. They are dishonoring every person who has ever been nominated for this award. They are disrespecting Dr. Andrews and the gift he continues to give this community year after year. They are telling every quiet, behind-the-scenes volunteer in Brockport that their work is only worth celebrating if the right people happen to like them.
Monika Andrews did not volunteer conditionally. She did not serve her community only for people she agreed with, only in front of audiences who applauded her, or only when it was politically convenient. She showed up. She believed in Brockport. That is the legacy this award is meant to honor.
Our volunteers deserve a mayor and a board that believes in Brockport, too.
Mayor Reed and the board members who chose to sideline this award owe an apology to Dr. Andrews, to the selection committee, to the nominators who took time to document and celebrate extraordinary service, and to every volunteer in this community whose work was diminished by this decision. More than an apology, they owe this community a commitment: that the Monika Andrews Award will never again be held hostage to personal politics. That this tradition will be honored the way it was designed to be honored: openly, publicly, and with the full dignity it deserves.
The plaque in Village Hall will be updated this year, as it is every year. Monika’s legacy will continue, as it always has, because of the people in this community who refuse to let it die. We are grateful to Dr. Andrews for his unwavering generosity. We are grateful to the selection committee for doing their work with integrity. We are grateful to the nominators who took the time to say: this person matters, this work matters, this community matters.
And to every volunteer reading this: you matter. What you do matters. Do not let anyone, regardless of their title, make you believe otherwise.
Brockport is better than what we witnessed at that board meeting. Let’s act like it.
Dr. Brittany Profit-Rheinwald
Brockport
