Our goal at The Citizen is to inspire citizenship, elevate those who embody The Citizen’s mission of solutions-focused action, and activate Philadelphians to make change. Our Citizen of the Year program, launched in 2024, is about more than celebrating do-gooders — it is about building a network of changemakers within Philadelphia, and positioning them as role models for the next generation. Over time, we hope to see these awards empower more citizens to be active in making Philadelphia the best place to live for everyone in it.
Highlights from the Inaugural Citizen of the Year Awards
Watch the full program, recorded January 31, 2024.
Inaugural Honorees
January 2024
Indy Shome
Educator of the Year
Michelle Belser
Block Captain of the Year
Sarahi Franco-Morales
Youth Leader of the Year
Michael Forman
Disruptors of the Year (with Ryan Boyer)
Ryan Boyer
Disruptors of the Year (with Michael Forman)
Mike Innocenzo
Lewis Katz Corporate Citizen of the Year
Robert Saleem Holbrook
A. Leon Higginbotham Jr. Social Justice Champion
Paul Levy
Lifetime Achievement
Sister Mary Scullion
Lifetime Achievement (with Joan Dawson McConnon)
Joan Dawson McConnon
Lifetime Achievement (with Sister Mary Scullion)
Dr. David Fajgenbaum
Philadelphia Citizen of the Year
Indy Shome
Educator of the Year
Born in India, raised in four countries and educated at Brown University, Indy Shome moved to Philly in 2017 for its thriving social justice and environmental justice scenes. A musician, artist and filmmaker, he paved the way for students at Dobbins High School to create a groundbreaking “peace garden,” an interdisciplinary model of youth-led, school-based, urban regeneration. He recently left the District, but he’s still working as an educator. At the Philadelphia Orchard Project, Shome helps design educational programs across community gardens around the city.
Michelle Belser
Block Captain of the Year
Michelle Belser, who, by day, has worked in CHOP operations for nearly a quarter of a century, has been a Block Captain in her Melrose Park neighborhood for more than 15 years. She is so committed to making sure her neighbors are registered to vote — and that they get out there to do so — that her block and District have the highest voter turnout in the entire city. Belser also recognizes the importance of making her block a place folks are proud to be part of and take care of. In 2021, she led her neighborhood to second place in the City’s Clean Block Competition. She’s a fierce safety advocate as well, insisting on safer streets via paving and traffic calming measures. For her work, she was honored by Council as a “Hero of the 9th Council District” in an official resolution last February.
Sarahi Franco-Morales
Youth Leader of the Year
Sarahi Franco-Morales used her time in lockdown to hand out at least 250 meals a day nearly every day during that first Covid summer, through her work with 215 People’s Alliance and World Central Kitchen. That work led to her activism: As a bilingual daughter of Mexican immigrants, she began lending her translating skills to community members who’d otherwise be shut out of arenas where decisions are made, from City Hall to her own South Philly neighborhood.
Michael Forman
Disruptors of the Year (with Ryan Boyer)
Michael Forman is Chairman and CEO of FS Investments. Boyer, business manager of the Philadelphia Building Trades Council, is the leader of the Laborers’ District Council. Together, they co-chair The Philadelphia Equity Alliance to close the racial wealth and health gap by bringing together businesses, labor, clergy, civic organizations and government — a groundbreaking effort that is antithetical to the usual way of doing things in Philadelphia. Their goals: grow minority-owned businesses, increase and improve minority employment and push for pay equity, achieve health equity, reduce gun violence, improve educational opportunities, promote the Black and Latinx arts and entertainment community and ensure government programs prioritize equity and inclusivity.
Ryan Boyer
Disruptors of the Year (with Michael Forman)
Ryan Boyer, business manager of the Philadelphia Building Trades Council, is the leader of the Laborers’ District Council. Forman is Chairman and CEO of FS Investments. Together, they co-chair The Philadelphia Equity Alliance to close the racial wealth and health gap by bringing together businesses, labor, clergy, civic organizations and government — a groundbreaking effort that is antithetical to the usual way of doing things in Philadelphia. Their goals: grow minority-owned businesses, increase and improve minority employment and push for pay equity, achieve health equity, reduce gun violence, improve educational opportunities, promote the Black and Latinx arts and entertainment community and ensure government programs prioritize equity and inclusivity.
Mike Innocenzo
Lewis Katz Corporate Citizen of the Year
Mike Innocenzo is the President and CEO of PECO, the Philly-based energy company that brought in nearly $4 billion in revenue in 2022. Since 2022, Innocenzo has also served as Chairman of the Board of the Chamber of Commerce for Greater Philadelphia. But his game-changing move of the last couple years is as an organizer of the Civic Coalition to Save Lives, an initiative that has brought more than 90 business, philanthropic and civic organizations together to partner with the City to address gun violence.
Robert Saleem Holbrook
A. Leon Higginbotham Jr. Social Justice Champion
Saleem Holbrook spent 27 years in prison — including 10 in solitary confinement — for a crime he committed when he was just 16 years old. He was released in 2018 after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that life sentences for minors were unconstitutional. Since then, he’s become an advocate for human rights — he recently testified in Geneva before the United Nations Human Rights Committee. He’s Executive Director of the Abolitionist Law Center, an organization dedicated to ending race- and class-based discrimination in the criminal justice system. Holbrook also teaches Community Lawyering to Prevent Mass Incarceration at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School.
Paul Levy
Lifetime Achievement
Paul Levy is the founding chief executive and longtime President and CEO of Center City District, serving in that capacity since January 1991. CCD is the $30.5 million downtown management district that provides security, cleaning, place marketing and planning services, as well as streetscape and park improvements for the central business district of Philadelphia. But what the CCD really fosters is a sense of community pride and collaboration.
Sister Mary Scullion
Lifetime Achievement (with Joan Dawson McConnon)
In 1989, Sister Mary Scullion and Joan Dawson McConnon co-founded the nationally recognized organization that provides supportive housing, employment, education and health care to enable chronically homeless and low-income people to break the cycle of homelessness and poverty. Under their leadership, Project HOME has grown from an emergency winter shelter to more than 1,000 units of housing, three social enterprises, the Honickman Learning Center Comcast Technology Labs, and the Steven Klein Wellness Center.
Joan Dawson McConnon
Lifetime Achievement (with Sister Mary Scullion)
In 1989, Sister Mary Scullion and Joan Dawson McConnon co-founded the nationally recognized organization that provides supportive housing, employment, education and health care to enable chronically homeless and low-income people to break the cycle of homelessness and poverty. Under their leadership, Project HOME has grown from an emergency winter shelter to more than 1,000 units of housing, three social enterprises, the Honickman Learning Center Comcast Technology Labs, and the Steven Klein Wellness Center.
Dr. David Fajgenbaum
Philadelphia Citizen of the Year
David Fajgenbaum nearly died — five times — from Castleman disease. With resolve like no other, he set about finding a drug to (successfully) treat himself — then turned around and co-created the nonprofit Every Cure, with the goal of harnessing the world’s medical data to systematically repurpose the 3,000 approved medicines to treat 12,000 known diseases. After being moved by Fajgenbaum’s memoir, Chasing My Cure, former President Bill Clinton personally invited Fajgenbaum to speak at the Clinton Global Initiative Meeting. Up next: a movie based on his life, and the continued expansion of his transformative organization. Fajgenbaum is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Founding Director of the Center for Cytokine Storm Treatment & Laboratory (CSTL), Associate Director of Patient Impact at Penn’s Orphan Disease Center, and Co-Founder & President of Castleman Disease Collaborative Network (CDCN).
Citizen of the Year Stories
