DAYTON, OHIO – Today, Congressman Mike Turner (OH-10) released the following statement after presenting Marya Rutherford-Long with the 2023 Congressional Community Service Award. Every year since 2017, Congressman Turner has publicly recognized individuals who make a unique and positive impact on Dayton’s African-American community by presenting them with this award. Former recipients include Don Black, Jesse Gooding, Jeremy Winston, Debbie Blunden-Diggs, Jacqueline Gamblin, and Dr. Rosalind Jackson.
Ms. Rutherford-Long is Vice President and Community and Economic Development Manager for the Dayton Region at Fifth Third Bank and serves on the senior leadership team for the Dayton market. She manages the Community & Economic Development Program for the Dayton market, ensuring the Region’s compliance with the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), cultivating community partnerships, and executing community development strategies.
“We are very excited to be here today to honor Marya Rutherford-Long, who I have known for over 30 plus years,” said Congressman Mike Turner. “She has worked diligently on community development, enriching our community, looking at ways that we can take community development and improve our neighborhoods and improve the lives of those who may be suffering or in need in our community. She originated from the neighborhoods and then came up in community development. We worked together when I was mayor, and she is a banking professional now. She has gone from neighborhood leader to banking leader, advancing the same issues, advancing the same causes.”
“I’d like to thank Congressman Turner for this wonderful award. The most wonderful thing about it – it is not really about the award. It’s about the work that we’ve done for 30 years,” said Marya Rutherford-Long, Vice President at Fifth Third Bank. “It represents the lives that have been impacted. It represents the communities and the neighborhoods and the corporations, and even the government organizations, like Wright-Patt Credit Union, that have been impacted by the work of our hands.”
Background:
Marya Rutherford-Long has over 25 years of CRA/community development experience and has served in various community development management roles with PNC Bank, National City Bank, Provident Bank, and the Dayton View CDC. She currently serves as chair of the Homeownership Center of Greater Dayton and is a member of the Dayton Business Journal’s Diversity Committee and the Corporate Community Roundtable.
Ms. Rutherford-Long has extensive community service experience. She serves as the current president of the Board of Trustees for the Miami Valley Urban League, and she also chairs the Miami Chapel Neighborhood Housing Committee. She has been acknowledged for her community service by the YWCA of Dayton, the Dayton Daily News, as well as the Dayton Business Journal.