• Sabo PR earned eight PRoof Awards for excellence in communications – including its third consecutive gold for crisis communications.

The Grand Rapids-based integrated communications firm earned four gold and four silver awards during last week’s virtual ceremony hosted by the West Michigan chapter of the Public Relations Society of America. In addition to its crisis communications work, Sabo PR was recognized for issues management, media relations, COVID-19 external community outreach, creative tactics, storytelling and event planning within the municipal, transportation, retail, health care and education fields.

Sabo PR received the following awards for its 2021 work:

• Gold for crisis communications for Starr Commonwealth’s crisis at the Southern border
• Gold for issues management for support of Aquinas College’s leadership transition
• Gold for its Phoenix Theatres press conference at Woodland Mall
• Gold for creative tactics in communications for the Children’s Healing Center
• Silver for media relations for holiday travel at Gerald R. Ford International Airport
• Silver for media relations announcing PREIT’s Support Black-Owned Businesses and Brands 365 initiative
• Silver for Emmanuel Hospice feature stories in community newspapers
• Silver for COVID-19 external community outreach for the City of Lowell’s Showboat City Social District

“We’re honored by the recognition of our industry peers for exceptional communication work on behalf of clients,” said Mary Ann Sabo, president of Sabo PR. “These awards underscore our team’s ability to develop and execute effective strategy and compelling communication tactics across a wide variety of industries and circumstances.

“Many of these projects were focused on the thoughtful communication of difficult topics to stakeholders, ranging from unaccompanied migrant children and families experiencing medical trauma to end-of-life care and executive leadership transitions. This work demonstrates our firm’s human-centered approach, putting people first in all we do.”

The West Michigan PRSA chapter holds its annual PRoof Awards to recognize the best public relations work of the year and highlight the highest standards of performance in the region. The awards are created to recognize public relations practitioners who have utilized skill, creativity and resourcefulness to address communication challenges. Each submission required nominations that detailed the research, planning, execution, creativity/quality, technical excellence and evaluation/results.