Blog, Videos and Podcasts Videos Podcasts Blogs and other Media Highlights from the 2023 Service to America Medals gala On October 16, 2023 the Partnership for Public Service held the 22nd annual Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medals gala at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC 2023 Sammies Fed Gov Today: Battling Opiod Crisis A program office inside the Department of Health and Human Services supports customized services all around the country to help deal with the opioid crisis. The program has touched more than two million people in 47 states and two territories. Megan Meacham, Director of the Rural Strategic Initiatives Division in the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy at the Health Resources and Services Administration at HHS, and her team are winners of the People’s Choice Award in this year’s Service to America Medals. 2023 Sammies, People's Choice Highlights from the 2022 Service to America Medals event On September 20, 2022 the Partnership for Public Service held the 21st annual Samual J. Heyman Service to America Medals gala at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. 2022 Sammies Government Matters: Steven Musser Steven Musser, deputy center director for scientific operations at the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition at the FDA, discusses the use of whole genome sequencing to greatly improve the way foodborne illnesses are investigated and prevented 2022 Sammies, Government Matters Series Government Matters: Barbara Morton The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) oversees the care of over 9 million vets. Within the agency, the Veterans Experience Office (VEO) works to make sure the experience of accessing benefits is easy and seamless. The VEO was established in 2015 after the VA medical center wait time crisis, when the department recognized it did not have… 2022 Sammies, Government Matters Series Government Matters: Yolanda López Voice of America (VOA) is a unique news organization in that it is funded by the federal government. VOA provides news and information to an international audience while promoting freedom of the press, democratic values and human rights, explained Acting Director Yolanda López. VOA practices public-service journalism, holding the powerful accountable and providing a voice… 2022 Sammies, Government Matters Series Government Matters: Cindy Newberg In 2019, the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol went into effect, with the goal of reducing hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and combating climate change. Cindy Newberg, Stratospheric Protection Division director at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), helped lead negotiations for this amendment. Newberg said the EPA is successfully working with industry and environmental groups to ensure… 2022 Sammies, Government Matters Series Government Matters: Diana Bianchi The director of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Dr. Diana Bianchi, helped launch several large-scale studies during the Covid-19 pandemic. She discussed some of this research on Government Matters. The research showed the Covid-19 vaccine does not cause adverse effects in… 2022 Sammies, Government Matters Series Sammies Summer Series: Emerging Leaders Call to Serve: Meet Mark Williams Less than 10% of the federal workforce is under the age of 35, and more needs to be done to highlight the role of—and opportunities for—younger people in federal service. In our fifth Sammies Summer Series virtual event, we will meet some of these young leaders in government who… 2022 Sammies, Sammies Summer Series Government Matters: Rupa Bhattacharyya The September 11th Victim Compensation Fund has helped pay out billions of dollars to individuals dealing with the long-term impacts of the terror attacks. Mimi Geerges spoke to Rupa Bhattacharyya, former special master of the fund at the Department of Justice and finalist for a Service to America award, who helped the fund bounce back from… 2022 Sammies, Government Matters Series Page header: Charles Bolden, former Administrator of NASA, interviewed backstage at the 2013 Sammies gala