Meet The 2026 Community Leadership Award Honoree: Lisa Goldblatt Grace
The annual Good Apple Awards Reception celebrates the inspiring achievements of those working to advance equity, opportunity, and justice across Massachusetts.
At this year’s event on October 29th, we will honor Lisa Goldblatt Grace with the 2026 Community Leadership Award, in recognition of her extraordinary leadership and unwavering commitment to improving the lives of young people across the Commonwealth.
Lisa has led groundbreaking and nationally recognized efforts at the intersection of youth homelessness, exploitation, and access to opportunity. Through advocacy, prevention, survivor-centered programming, and policy reform, she has helped strengthen the systems that protect some of Massachusetts’ most marginalized young people.
Lisa has been a strategic partner with Mass Appleseed, providing critical insight into various sections of the Homeless Youth Handbook as it pertained to sexual exploitation and human trafficking. This work involved providing substantive edits to the Handbook to ensure that its content is accurate and accessible to a wide audience, as well as connecting Mass Appleseed with youth who provided their feedback about the usability and substance of the Handbook.
As the Co-Founder and former Co-Executive Director of My Life My Choice and Massachusetts’ first Statewide Anti-Human Trafficking Director, Lisa has spent more than three decades working alongside young people impacted by exploitation, trafficking, poverty, and systemic inequities. From leading a shelter for teen parents to co-leading the development of Massachusetts’ five-year strategic plan to combat sex trafficking, her career has been defined by a commitment to both direct service and lasting systems change.
In fact, the Healey-Driscoll Administration adopted the five-year strategic plan to address human trafficking in the Commonwealth, which Lisa helped lead alongside partners across the state. The Administration then hired her to implement this unprecedented collaboration among every branch and office of state government, service providers, researchers, and law enforcement.
“This work isn’t about one organization or one agency. It’s about creating lasting systems that continue to serve people better long into the future, especially young people experiencing homelessness who often face overlapping challenges and vulnerabilities.” – Lisa
We hope you’ll join us to celebrate Lisa’s remarkable contributions, along with the other 2026 Good Apple Award honorees.
Get your tickets at: massappleseed.org/goodapple
Good Apple Sponsors help ensure that Mass Appleseed has the resources it needs to help people access justice every day, in every community.
Sponsors receive complimentary tickets and recognition at the event as well as additional benefits and visibility throughout the year. Please consider becoming a Good Apple sponsor now and join us in celebrating our accomplishments and honoring our awardees on October 29.
Learn about sponsorship opportunities and benefits at: massappleseed.org/goodapple
We need your partnership. Together, we can continue expanding legal rights education, advancing systemic reforms, and building a Commonwealth where every young person can thrive.
Thank you in advance for your generosity and support.
