AARP to Honor Old Dominion and Sonia Yaco with Community of the Year Award

October 19, 2012

Old Dominion University and Sonia Yaco, Special Collections librarian and university archivist, will receive AARP's Community of the Year Award for work on the traveling Desegregation of Virginia Education (DOVE) exhibit.

The DOVE project was launched in March as a partnership between the ODU's Perry Library, AARP Virginia, the Virginia Conference NAACP and the Urban League of Hampton Roads. It featured a traveling exhibit designed to encourage the preservation of records that tell the story of Virginia's school desegregation - through firsthand accounts of people who experienced both the segregation and desegregation of Virginia's public schools

The award is in recognition of Yaco's leadership on the project. She will be honored formally at the AARP All Volunteer Assembly Awards Recognition Banquet on Nov. 29 in Charlottesville.

The exhibit will be at Patricia W. and J. Douglas Perry Library from Jan. 7 to Feb. 14. Information about the DOVE project and this initiative can be found at http://www.lib.edu/specialcollections/dove/index.htm or from the University Libraries' website, http://www.lib.odu.edu under Special Collections and University Archives.