Lycoming County Brotherhood Alliance Award recipients pose with keynote speaker Korrin Moon-Gardner following the ceremony. From left to right: Mary Jo Westbrook, Maurice Jordan, Korrin Moon-Gardner, Dave Brumaugh, Mike Ludwikowski, Rick Mason, Chrissy Heinbach and Doug Alexander. JESSICA WATSON/Sun-Gazette Correspondent

Community spirit was celebrated Wednesday night as the Lycoming County Brotherhood Alliance held their 68th annual banquet and awards ceremony.

Several area residents were highlighted for their hard work and dedication that has resulted in positive changes to their community.

The keynote speaker at this year’s event was Korrin Moon-Gardner, a special prosecutor with the Lycoming County District Attorney’s Office and founder of Lantern Rescue, an organization that seeks to help victims of sexual exploitation and sex trafficking from around the world reclaim and rebuild their lives.

Moon-Gardner holds a bachelor of arts in political science from Lycoming College, an internal relations certificate from Harvard University and a juris doctorate from Penn State School of Law.

Founded five years ago, the organization has rescued over 2,800 victims from 11 countries.

Moon-Gardner’s speech touched on Lantern Rescue’s overseas work, but focused on the often overlooked threat within smaller communities.

Noting that only 1% of the victims helped by her organization were victims of abduction, she stressed the importance of personal relations and keeping an eye on the most vulnerable population, children.

“The largest risk to children in America today for human trafficking is going to be what’s on their mobile devices. For a lot of kids that are trafficked today in the U.S., that situation starts and sometimes ends just down the hall from their parents,” Moon-Gardner said, stressing that situational awareness plays a critical part in halting such crimes.

“So many victims have testimonies over the years that a bus driver is the first person that found them, that a waitress at a restaurant is the first person that identified that something was wrong,” she said.

“Be looking around, always know your surroundings, know who’s around you, and actually care about one another,” Moon-Gardner said.

Recipients of this year’s William Pickelner Award were Dave Brumbaugh and Loni Gamble.

“When I was 14 years old, I discovered the guitar. It was a time in my life where I really didn’t know what I was going to do. I was starting to get into some bad things and making stupid decisions. And the guitar gave me focus. It gave me something that I love and it’s lasted my entire life,” Brumbaugh, who’s Uptown Music Collective celebrates its 25th anniversary this year.

“I love to teach. I love to perform. The gift that I really have is to share it with others in the teaching world, and just guide young students to music and teaching them how to define themselves within it,” he said.

“I’m very grateful for the fact that I found that and I continue to be able to do that today,” Braumbaugh told the audience.

Accepting the award on behalf of his father, Loni Gamble, lead guitarist of the famed R&B group, The Stylistics, was his son, Maurice Jordan.

Gamble passed away in August 2024.

“This is a moment filled with so much pride, a touch of sadness and an overwhelming sense of gratitude,” he said.

“For those of you who knew, my dad knew that community wasn’t just a word he tossed around. It was the very air he breathed. He saw the potential in every corner, the strength in every connection, and the possibility for growth in every interaction, and if he felt something wasn’t missing, like he constructed it,” Jordan said.

“We will continue to honor his legacy by striving to build the kind of connected, supportive and yes, even a slightly humorous community that he so passionately believed in,” he said.

Long-time community and youth activist Mike Ludwikowski, then took to the stage to accept 2025’s Ray Keyes Sports Award.

“I’m proud to win this award. I’m an athletic trainer. Athletic trainers don’t win many awards,” Ludwikowski, whose Coaches Invitation Golf Tournament has raised over $222,000 in 25 years, said.

“I look at the past winners of this award, and I think, that’s a lot of great people and I’m honored just to be on that page with them,” he told the audience.

This year, Ludwikowski will be entering his 26th year as the head athletic trainer for the Little League Baseball World Series.

Four recipients of the Unsung Hero Award were also honored, including Doug Alexander, Chrissy Heinbach, Rick Mason and Mary Jo Westerbrook.

Alexander volunteers as an umpire for Little League Baseball, West End Baseball, Pony League Softball, and as an uncle for the Little League Baseball World Series, having previously coached Little League, Senior League and Legion baseball, said host Ken Sawyer, who also noted his commitment to friends, family and strangers, while not seeking out recognition for his actions.

Heinbach is a breast cancer survivor, who, in 2018, founded Girlz in the Hoodie, a nonprofit created to help women battling breast cancer and those facing a mastectomy with a free zip up hoodie.

As a prime owner and operator of Domer’s Bar and Grill, Heinbach organizes a benefit each year with the goal of easing the financial burden of area residents battling breast cancer.

Long-time broadcast journalist Rick Mason, who now works mostly behind the camera, has worked with several well-known organizations, including the James V. Brown Library, American Rescue Workers North. Central Pennsylvania Conservancy and We Are Women Helping Women, to name just a few.

Westbrook’s community work includes 35 years as an employee of Lycoming County Children and Youth. Her most cherished accomplishment is securing grant funding and developing a. Family Visitation Center for children in foster care.

Westbrook was a long time Girl Scout leader and has volunteered with many organizations over the years, including Bethune Douglas homework club, Family Promise, Habitat for Humanity and the YWCA, among others.

Alliance President Lee Miller thanked not only the recipients, but also those in attendance for their support.

“To our unsung heroes, honestly, this is your night. You labor under the radar day after day after day. You don’t ask for recognition. You don’t do it for any other reason, and that’s your soul, and that’s your heart and that’s your character,” he said.

The best thing about these folks is tomorrow, they’ll be back doing the same old thing. They’ll be back at it again tomorrow,” Miller said.