Special to the Sun
Eastern Bank Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Eastern Bank, hosted more than 700 business, philanthropic and community leaders at their 2024 Celebration of Social Justice, honoring Jackie Jenkins-Scott, a nationally recognized social justice champion. Jenkins-Scott was celebrated for her decades of work and dedication to creating positive change in Boston and beyond. The Social Justice Award celebrates an outstanding leader who, through their dedication and passion, has made significant contributions to advance social justice in our region. This year’s Celebration of Social Justice event also marked the 30th anniversary of the Eastern Bank Foundation.
For more than three decades, Jenkins-Scott has been a leading advocate for racial and economic equity for people of color and other diverse communities in Boston. She is widely known for taking vulnerable, crucial community-centered organizations and reshaping them into high performing, mission driven mainstays of opportunity and equity – particularly in the health and education spaces.
“Jackie is a transformer and innovator for good,” said Nancy Huntington Stager, President & CEO of Eastern Bank Foundation. “Her boundless energy and deep connections in communities of color – including with our next generation of civic and business leaders – together with her superpowers to take on difficult situations, create a vision and rally others to join in the work, and her persistence to stay at it until positive outcomes are achieved is a gift for all of us in Boston and Massachusetts. Eastern Bank and our Foundation are proud and humbled to be long-term supporters of Jackie’s work and vision. While she may think of retirement, we know that she will always be a force for good in our communities and look forward to what’s coming next.”
Jenkins-Scott recently concluded her two-year tenure as interim president at Roxbury Community College (RCC), where she focused on helping underserved students prepare for high-growth careers and business ownership to spur economic inclusion and mobility. Prior to her role at RCC, Jenkins-Scott served as the first African American president of Wheelock College for more than a decade from 2004 to 2016, where she earned a reputation for eliminating barriers to higher education success, growing academic options and quality, as well as increasing the enrollment of ethnically and differently-abled students by 40 percent.
As a recognized champion and changemaker advancing health, social and economic justice, Jenkins-Scott spent 21 years at the helm of Roxbury’s Dimock Center beginning in 1983. She took the organization from near bankruptcy to success as a sustainable benchmark institution for health, workforce development, housing and wraparound services for families. In doing this, she also saved the Dimock campus from gentrification.
Jenkins-Scott has been a sought-after expert and partner by Governors and Mayors across the Commonwealth, helping to shape public policy, promote equity and improve education. She has served on many boards including the Boston Foundation, the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, and the Tufts Health Plan. As a consultant, Jenkins-Scott has helped countless leaders create and extend mission-based organizations, and she is the author of the book The 7 Secrets of Responsive Leadership.
“With Eastern Bank and Eastern Bank Foundation having been at the epicenter of the work for Social Justice for as long as I have, I am delighted to receive this award,” said Jenkins-Scott. “We are living in challenging times which makes the continued push for equity in health, education, and economic inclusion and mobility even more important. We must continue to press ahead with optimism and hope, as the opposite – despair – is just not an option. Our young people getting ready for their first careers, our families and our neighbors need to be given agency to build their lives on more equitable footing. Let’s all keep pushing for that together across nonprofit, for-profit and policy efforts.”
The Celebration of Social Justice event also honored founding trustees of the Eastern Bank Foundation, now in its 30th year, including remaining members Stanley J. Lukowski, John A. Shane and Larry B. Leonard. Since its inception, the Eastern Bank Foundation has supported more than 7,000 unique organizations with over 36,000 grants and invested more than $171MM+ in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island. A regional leader in volunteerism, Eastern employees have devoted more than 730,000 volunteer hours since 1994.