For decades, Leslie Taylor Davol ’87 and Sam Davol ’88 have lived out the values of service and community that Concord Academy keeps at heart. In honor of this enduring dedication, they received the 2025 Joan Shaw Herman Award.

The centerpiece of their effort is Street Lab, a non-profit they founded in 2011. With a pop-up approach, Street Lab has been transforming streets and public spaces in New York into active, welcoming environments. Starting with a portable reading room, the Davols gradually expanded the programming, all while still channeling funding directly into under-served communities. They drew inspiration straight from everyday street life. Recently, based on kids cooling off with fire hydrants, they developed the Oasis program, where a gentle “misting river” invites all ages to enjoy community time on hot days. The couple also draws from childhood experiences of their own. “So in some ways it’s about remembering those experiences and trying to find a way to bring parts of them—or some essence of them—to other places where it might not be as easy to access,” Sam Davol said. They started Street Lab because they felt an urgency to pursue community-oriented, non-profit work in a new, adaptive way. It was also a choice to work together.

Leslie and Sam met and fell in love at CA. Leslie Davol did photography and art, and discovered a fascination with Art History in Janette Eisendrath’s Western Civilization course. She played sports and enjoyed the Biology curriculum as well. Sam Davol credits really learning to write to the guidance of CA teacher Phillip McFarland. He also joined his first band here, the Fatty Acids. Seeing the familiar music rooms on this visit back, he reflected that spaces like these matter deeply to students with creative interests, as they harbor unstructured practices and explorations.

CA has given the couple a lasting, spiritual gift of community. Compared to larger universities, and then to adulthood relationships that are often fragmented by geography and time, CA’s close-knit environment becomes a precious memory. There is something important about having people right around you, who are not just a homogenous group, but different people brought together by a common place. In the case of Street Lab, this physical togetherness brings peace and safety.

Many neighborhoods that Street Lab has operated in did not feel safe. Sometimes there were dangerous activities or drug presence. But Street Lab’s effort brought changes. The couple tracked statistics like men-to-women ratios at certain public spaces, and they found that it balances out once Street Lab comes—women felt more comfortable entering the spaces that otherwise usually have a heavier male presence. “In some ways we are often called upon to create an alternative to more aggressive policing,” says Sam. “When you’re able to make a space that is multi-generational where people feel comfortable, sometimes you don’t even have to remove the people who might have been frightening to others.”

The most important mission of Street Lab is to ensure that transformations of public spaces continue. Street Lab regularly provides similar groups with their kits of pop-up equipment. This year, they even restarted a high school volunteer program. The couple seeks to empower other people to do what they do, because they realized it’s the only way to spread their cause.

There were lots of uncertainties and unpredictability growing this non-profit. It was scary, especially with two young children, but they persevered. “There is so much we can do anyway. Maybe our funding evaporates, but we have this warehouse full of kits that we’ve made… maybe you have to do it a different way, but you can keep at it,” said Leslie. Sam adds, “There’s a certain amount of faith you need to have to swim upstream, sometimes in a world that doesn’t seem to focus on doing good. The only thing I would say is that, I wouldn’t change it for the world.”

With Street Lab, Leslie and Sam Davol bring a utopian dream down to earth, extending connections and joy through everyday reconfigurations. And in doing so, they invite us all to reimagine our public spaces not as fixed infrastructure, but as spaces of our dearest hopes for humanity.