Ball State professor and community volunteer Linda Keys was recently awarded the Ruth Freund Award from Muncie's Motivate Our Minds Inc.
"It was a unanimous vote for Linda," Sharon Collis, executive director for Motivate Our Minds said. "She gets things done."
Keys has been working with Motivate Our Minds for three years and brings her skills in grant writing, publicity and planning with her.
Originally from Chicago, Keys said she has always worked to better the communities she lives in.
"I'm just a person that can't say no," Keys said.
Every year the nonprofit organization awards the Ruth Freund Award to one community member who provides time to under-serviced children and promotes racial harmony.
The award was named after Ruth Freund who worked very hard to support race relations, Collis said. When Motivate Our Minds almost went under years ago, she held a fund-raiser to continue its efforts.
Motivate Our Minds works with Delaware County students, grades first through eighth, with homework and other home and school-related issues. The organization assists 225 students each year, according to its Web site.
Motivate Our Minds was started in the 1990s by Rashanna Shabazz and Mary Dollison, who is a long-time friend of Keys, Collis said.
Besides her dedication to Motivate Our Minds, Keys has worked at Ball State since 1987 as an associate professor of urban planning and associate director of Ball State's Office of Academic Research and Sponsored Programs.
In 2001, Keys received an outstanding citizen award from the Muncie Black Expo. She has also won awards from The Muncie Times newspaper and the City of Muncie.
Keys said that winning these awards is not why she gives her time; however, it does make her very humble.
During her time in Muncie, Keys has also worked with the Muncie Whitely and Industry neighborhoods, she has headed the city's Community Development Department, worked with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in community projects.
"Linda is just a wealth of ideas and enthusiastic about everything," Collis said. "Overall she's just an outstanding person."
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