On June 15, 2016, at the annual meeting of the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island, Susan Leach DeBlasio was presented with the Joseph W. Ress Community Service Award for exemplary leadership and extraordinary achievement in bringing the people of Rhode Island together to establish a better community.
The award is given to any member of the community who has fulfilled leadership roles in the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island and in local and/or national Jewish agencies and organizations, and in addition, assumed and creditably discharged leadership roles within the Rhode Island general community in nonprofit organizations within the community and achieved recognition that reflects favorably upon himself or herself and upon the Jewish community.
The Joseph W. Ress Community Service Award was created in 1992 to honor the memory of an outstanding member of the community. The award is not given annually, but only when the committee recognizes an especially worthy individual.
