All Pawtucket All The Time

Butler Hospital will honor Kitty Dukakis, author and former first lady of Massachusetts, with the 2010 Annual Lila M. Sapinsley Community Service Award. The award will be presented to Dukakis at a luncheon at the Ray Conference Center on the Butler Campus on Tuesday, November 3, 2009, at 11:45 a.m. Dukakis was chosen for the award for her efforts in reducing stigma by speaking openly about her battle with depression, bipolar disorder, and alcoholism.

The wife of former Massachusetts governor and 1988 U.S. presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, Mrs. Dukakis authored two books, Now You Know, a memoir published in 1990, in which she writes about her alcoholism, and her most recent book, Shock, which outlines her battle with depression and subsequent return to health through electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) treatments.

Ms. Dukakis serves as an advocate for refugees around the world with noted relief agencies.  She is the director of public space partnerships at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and has served on the boards of the Children’s Museum and Lesley University.  She was the founder and 22-year member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC and presently serves on the board and the committee on conscience for the museum.  She has three children and six grandchildren.

Butler Hospital presents The Lila Sapinsley award annually to an individual who has provided outstanding community service to improve the lives of people affected by mental illness. Sapinsley served as chairman of Butler Hospital’s Board of Trustees from 1978 to 1984. Past awardees include NBC 10’s Health Check reporter, Barbara Morse-Silva, and Felice Freyer, award-winning medical writer for The Providence Journal.