Founder of Spanish-language center for woman receives service award

The founder of a Spanish-language resource center that offers spiritual and emotional support for women received US Representative Seth Moulton’s annual service award on Plum Island Sunday morning.

The Democratic congressman gave Magalie Yolanda Torres-Rowe the Peter J. Gomes Service Award during a ceremony at the Parker River Wildlife Refuge, according to a statement from Moulton’s office.

Torres-Rowe, of Lynn, is the founder and executive director of the Latina Center Maria, an organization that offers as professional development and educational resources in Spanish, according to its website.

“In a time when so many are actively working to make it harder for our Spanish-speaking friends to fully participate in the social, economic, and cultural fabric of our nation, Magalie has stepped up — providing education and resources in Spanish that allow everyone to feel included in our community,” Moulton said in the statement.

The award, now in its third year, is named for a longtime minister at Harvard University, where Moulton attended college and graduate school. “Reverend Gomes was my greatest mentor in life, a man who dedicated his life to service and challenged others to do the same,” Moulton said, according to the statement.

This year’s nominees for the award also included a firefighter and a town manager, and this marks the second year in a row that the winner came from Lynn. Last year, the award went to Jason McCuish, an English teacher at Lynn Vocational Technical Institute and a volunteer at My Brother’s Table, a soup kitchen in the city.

On Sunday, Moulton praised Torres-Rowe’s work at the Latina Center Maria.

“Her dedication to service and her resourcefulness in fixing this problem are an inspiration to us all,” he said, according to the statement.

Attendees of the 9 a.m. ceremony, joined by Moulton, also marked the day by picking up litter from the wildlife refuge’s beach afterwards, said Matt Corridoni, a spokesman for Moulton, in a brief phone interview.

Moulton then crossed the nearby border to stump for New Hampshire first congressional district candidate Maura Sullivan, who faces a primary Tuesday, Corridoni said.