Award-winner cares for caregivers

When her husband was diagnosed with prostate cancer in the early 1980s, Joanne Prince was glad her nursing background would allow her to give him the care he needed. But it was not long before she began to wonder what a caregiver without that background would do.

''That was a very, very difficult time in the life of my family, going through that," said Prince, now 74. ''There was very little support at that time for caregivers."

After her husband died in 1981, Prince decided to devote her life to advocating for the rights of caregivers. In 1994, she cofounded the Multicultural Coalition on Aging, and three weeks ago, she was notified she has been named one of seven recipients this year of the Boston Neighborhood Fellows Award, a $30,000 grant.

''I was in shock, couldn't believe it," Prince said. ''At first I thought it was some sort of promotional gimmick, but the letter arrived and it was real. It's the first time in my life I've been able to do something [financially] for someone else outside of my family."

Prince plans to donate the majority of the grant to a scholarship designed in her name at the coalition she founded. Future winners, she said, will be people of color embarking on careers dealing with the aged. The rest of the grant will be divided between the Twelfth Baptist Church in Roxbury, of which she is a member, and the New England Regional Black Nurses Association.

Prince, an African-American woman, received her nursing degree at the Lemuel Shattuck Hospital in Jamaica Plain in 1958 and then spent most of her life working in hospitals, including 20 years in geriatric care. She then worked in private home care for six years before spending another 14 at the Sherrill House in Jamaica Plain, a long-term care facility.

For 16 years, she has made her home in Rogerson Communities in Roslindale, which helps to serve low-income elderly people and those with disabilities, in its Roslindale House property. She is also a community overseer of the properties.

''We need to see more things being done by the elders that are positive, so the baby boomers don't reach 65 and say, 'Oh my God, it's over,' " she said.

Prince and other grant recipients will receive their awards Tuesday from Mayor Thomas M. Menino, as part of a ceremony celebrating the award's 15th year.

The grant recipients are selected by the Philanthropic Initiative's selection committee, which works with a network of anonymous ''spotters" representing diversity in Boston.

Over the past 15 years, more than $2 million has been given out to 93 Bostonians.

''The donor, who is an anonymous donor, didn't believe in the big organizations, didn't feel the money got to the real people, and felt that the best way to distribute their money would have been to drive down the streets of Boston and throw it out their windows," said Wendy Carter, CFO of the Philanthropic Initiative, a nonprofit organization based in Boston that serves as an adviser to donors.

Instead, the organization vowed to help the donor give money to everyday people deserving of the honor.

Other recipients this year include Sheila Davis of the Sibusiso organization, who helps women living with HIV and AIDS; Jesus Gerena of the Hyde Square Task Force, who has mobilized hundreds of local teens to participate in plans to redevelop their neighborhood; George Sigel of the South Boston Behavioral Health Programs at the New England Medical Center, who has spent 33 years treating the mentally ill; Annie Wilcox, an executive secretary at the Boston Police Department; and Kathy Brown and Kevin Whalen, a married couple who shared the award for their work with the Boston Tenant Coalition and the Center to Support Immigrant Organizing.

The award ceremony will take place Tuesday from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Old South Meeting House, 310 Washington St. Awards will be presented at 7 p.m.