For helping hands, applause

They search for the right words to say. They giggle over the number of forks they've been given to eat a simple salad. They casually call the mayor "Tom."

It's not that the honorees at the Action for Boston Community Development Inc.'s annual Community Awards Dinner were out of their element at the Boston Marriott Copley Place. It's just that while they are among the city's more tireless citizens for serving their communities behind the scenes, being in the spotlight . . . well, it took some getting used to.

The awards banquet Nov. 3 was a night for recognizing Janyce Cunningham , a grandmother and ABCD volunteer who upon enrolling at the Urban College of Boston breezed to a 3.5 grade-point average in her first semester.

It was a night for thanking Tina Chery for her thoughtfulness the time a stubborn rainfall pushed back a peace rally in Dorchester. With no one in sight at the noon start time, the director of the Louis D. Brown Institute for Peace lined the gates of the park with purple ribbons anyway.

And it was surely a night for honoring John White , the beloved East Boston activist who received the loudest ovation of all. He still hasn't slowed down. His wife Eva was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease eight years ago.

"He's not very willing to accept gratitude but he's very appreciative for this," said White's daughter, Siobhan Dispenza . In his acceptance speech, White quipped of learning two things in life: be brief and be seated.

In a later interview, White said that he was "honored and humbled" by the award.

"The people I helped have helped me more than I helped them because they taught me some of the raw lessons of life."

The agency reaches about 100,000 low-income Greater Boston residents annually with services for every age, including child care, fuel assistance, and career development.

The awards dinner, the agency's 32d, was also a night to celebrate what the nonprofit organization means to some of the people it has helped.

Jamaica Plain resident John Williams, 64, credits ABCD's Head Start program with helping his grandson Michael blossom socially and academically. Both of Michael's parents are deaf.

"My life has been enriched not just being associated with the staff but with the children," said Williams, who is chairman of a parent policy group for the South Side English for Speakers of Other Languages Project.

The organization awarded Gloria Weekes, chairwoman of Head Start's policy council, with a community service award. Jamaica Plain photographer Don West was given a special award for his visual history of Boston communities.

Former US senator John Edwards of North Carolina gave the keynote speech, addressing solutions to poverty in America. But several attendees went home talking about the surprise appearance by Deval L. Patrick, a few days away from his gubernatorial victory . After receiving a raucous welcoming, Patrick praised the work of ABCD's president and CEO, Bob Coard .

But the personal stories of sacrifice and triumph by friends and guests of the closely knit ABCD community are the lifeblood of the 44-year-old organization.

"The children I work with have kept me feeling youthful as well as useful," read a statement by award recipient Miriam Manning, a foster grandmother with Early Head Start at Geneva Avenue in Dorchester. "Helping kids and having the opportunity to hear one of them shout, 'Grandma, LOOK!' is one of my life's greatest thrills."