Honoring outstanding women who have helped expand and enrich the cultural life of the Greater Grand Rapids Community

St. Cecilia Music Center (SCMC) announces Ellen Arlinsky, Mary Bloom and Kate McGarry as the 2024 honorees of the esteemed Helen DeVos Legacy Award. Now in its fifth year, past Legacy Award recipients have included Helen DeVos, Stella Royce, Karen Henry Stokes, and Mary Goodwillie Nelson. The Helen DeVos Legacy Award honors women who have helped to expand and enrich the cultural life of the Greater Grand Rapids community. 

Ellen Arlinsky, Mary Bloom and Kate McGarry have been instrumental in St. Cecilia Music Center’s many successes, with over 50 years of combined board service to the organization, helping to make SCMC the innovative and professional organization that it is today. In the 1980s and 90s, Ellen Arlinsky, Mary Bloom and Kate McGarry ushered in a new era at SCMC. Mary and Kate served terms as President of the Board during that time, and Ellen is the longest-serving board member in SCMC’s history – still counting at 30 years! This trailblazing group of women oversaw the largest capital campaign in SCMC’s history up to that point, in addition to the renovations made possible by those funds. They also helped to streamline SCMC’s organizational processes, recruit new board members, revitalize the organization’s marketing efforts, and much more.

The Annual Helen DeVos Legacy Award Gala Event to honor the three women will take place at St. Cecilia Music Center on Saturday, April 27, 2024. The Helen DeVos Legacy Award Gala will include a chamber music performance in the Royce Auditorium by a trio of SCMC Board members —Sookkyung, piano, Chris Martin, violin, and Dr. Alicia Córdoba, oboe. Pianist Xavier Davis, associate professor of jazz piano at the MSU College of Music, will also perform a jazz offering. The event will feature a Gala Dinner followed by an Awards Ceremony in SCMC’s Dexter Ballroom.