Canton’s Arielle Galinsky awarded Eisner Prize

On July 2, Canton native Arielle Galinsky was announced as a member of the third cohort of Eisner Prize Fellows, a national program that supports new leaders in the field of intergenerational programming.

Arielle Galinsky

A 2020 graduate of Canton High School, Galinsky serves as chief executive officer and co-founder of The Legacy Project, Inc. (TLP), which began as a passion project during her high school years.

TLP officially took shape at Tufts University in 2021, when she co-founded the student organization alongside fellow Tufts alumni Katherine Furey and Wanda Schlumpf. Together, the three women helped build it into an organization of nearly 30 students, each of whom were matched with an older adult in their community with the purpose of building strong intergenerational relationships, combatting social isolation, breaking down ageist stereotypes, and documenting the life histories of both students and seniors.

Now, four years later, TLP is a nationwide nonprofit with 25 active college and university chapters. “The Legacy Project started from a place of regret, after losing my own grandfathers without asking them about their life histories,” said Galinsky. “It is truly remarkable to see college students and older adults build such strong friendships over the course of the academic year, and to see such meaningful stories uplifted to be shared with communities and families for years to come.”

The Eisner Prize Fellowship is a program of the Eisner Foundation — the family foundation of former Disney CEO Michael Eisner and his wife, Jane — and is the only U.S.-based foundation exclusively supporting intergenerational programs. The Eisner Prize Fellowship is a year-long program designed to support leaders pioneering innovations in intergenerational connection. Each year, five Fellows are selected from a highly competitive applicant pool and are awarded a $10,000 stipend and $40,000 to support their intergenerational project proposal.

During the fellowship, Galinsky will launch TLP Intergenerational Changemakers, a program that seeks to engage pairs of older and younger people from across the country to turn shared storytelling into propelling civic change. After conducting months of shared storytelling and bridge building, pairs will co-design and co-implement a micro-initiative in their communities that seeks to address a local issue both individuals are passionate about, ranging from hosting a food pantry to convening individuals for a multigenerational civic dialogue. Each intergenerational pair will receive mentorship, a small grant, and group support as they pursue their storytelling journey and civic project. Intergenerational Changemakers switches the tool of storytelling from being framed as a mere memory exercise to a genuine tool of civic intervention.

A 2024 summa cum laude graduate of Tufts with a bachelor’s in biopsychology, community health and political science, Galinsky is currently pursuing two advanced degrees — a Master in Public Policy (MPP) from Harvard Kennedy School and a JD from Yale Law School — with the hopes of pursuing a career in aging policy and elder law.

She joins four other leaders in intergenerational connection in the 2025-26 cohort of Eisner Prize Fellows, including Dr. Abdul Hamid Bashir, director of the West African Community Center in Philadelphia; Serena Bian, former special advisor in design and innovation to U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy; Marissa Birne, associate director of education at the University of Vermont Center on Aging; and Maya Joshi, co-founder and executive director of Lifting Hearts with the Arts.

Extended biographies and project proposals for each Fellow can be found at eisnerfoundation.org/eisner-prize-fellowship-2025-26-cohort.

To learn more about The Legacy Project, go to www.legacyprojectinc.org.

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Posted by Canton Citizen on Jul 11 2025. Filed under Features. Both comments and pings are currently closed.