At Monday’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration, Community Outreach Specialist Florence Randolph received this year’s Peacemaker Award. (Photo by Reilly Dixon)
Randolph gets Peacemaker Award
- Published: February 20, 2026
To thunderous applause and cheers from the hundreds of villagers packed in the John Bryan Center gym on Monday, Jan. 19 — Martin Luther King Jr. Day — longtime villager and Community Outreach Specialist Florence Randolph received the year’s Peacemaker Award.
“From the bottom of my heart, thank you,” Randolph told the crowd, fighting back tears. “I say thank you to everyone in this room who has supported me. It has been my life’s journey to help those in need — to help all of you.”
Since 2018, Randolph has worked for the Yellow Springs Police Department as a community outreach specialist, providing social services to village residents, workers and visitors, and connecting individuals to material and mental health resources.
“Florence’s life and work are rooted in service, faith and a belief that every person deserves dignity, hope and support,” MLK Day Planning Committee Chair Linda Cox said before presenting the annual award.
“She brings a powerful sense of purpose to everything she does,” Cox added. “She is a voice of hope.”
By accepting the Peacemaker Award, Randolph joins the ranks of past local recipients, inclduing Bomani Moyenda, Joan Chappelle, Andree Bognar, Willa Dallas, Phyllis Jackson and other village activists and agents of change.
“Everything I do in my life is dedicated to Jesus Christ,” Randolph said. “Everyone I help is in my prayers — I pray for you all in the morning, when I’m with you, at night. You all are always covered by my prayers.”
According to the most recent Village Manager’s report, Randolph — as well as her co-specialist Danny Steck — served more than 160 individuals over the course of a single week earlier this month; the pair provided those folks with 44 food vouchers, four bus tokens, seven instances of advocacy for victims of a crime, rental assistance, utility assistance and more.
One of the individuals on the receiving end of Randolph’s aid approached the podium as she was delivering her “thank you” speech.
“Florence is an angel,” the man told the crowd. “She saved my life. She deserves everything she gets in life.”
Following the conferral of the Peacemaker Award, Monday’s Martin Luther King Jr. celebration continued with vocal arrangements by the World House Choir and a solo performance by Chloe Richardson; readings of student essays, (which will be published in a future issue of the News); a spoken word performance by humorist and oratory artist Phenom Brown; as well as a speech by the day’s featured speaker, activist and author Kevin Powell.
As is tradition for Yellow Springs’ celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the program concluded with a soup lunch. Owing to the morning’s frigid temperatures, the march that would have preceded the indoor program was canceled.
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