The inaugural Syracuse Prize honors community members who have made significant contributions to the cultural vitality and civic life of the City of Syracuse. Berry accepted the award at a ceremony on May 14, 2026, with the recognition also drawing coverage from regional media outlets, including Syracuse.com and NewsChannel 9.

Founded by Berry in 2022, Project Mend is an open-access national archive developed in partnership with the Center for Community Alternatives in Syracuse. The initiative centers the creative and scholarly work of people directly impacted by incarceration, offering paid editorial and design apprenticeships that provide participants with professional skills and pathways to future opportunity.

“I believe the arts should be accessible to everyone, including those rebuilding their lives after prison,” says Berry. “Initiatives like Project Mend remind us that creativity, storytelling and multimodal publishing are powerful forms of education, healing and community.”

A central component of the initiative is Mend, a print and digital journal that publishes fiction, nonfiction, poetry and visual art by incarcerated people, formerly incarcerated individuals and their families. This spring, Project Mend celebrated the release of Mend’s fourth volume, marking a significant milestone in the project’s continued growth and national reach.

Project Mend also serves as a high-impact experiential learning site for Syracuse University students. Many students first encounter the project through Berry’s courses in A&S and continue through internships and apprenticeships, translating their work with Mend into career pathways in publishing, communications, social services, nonprofit leadership and graduate study.

The Syracuse Prize is the latest in a series of honors recognizing Berry’s leadership on Project Mend. In 2025, he received the Outstanding College–Community Partnership Award from the Coalition for Community Writing, which recognized Project Mend’s collaborative and reciprocal engagement with justice-impacted communities. Berry has also received support through Syracuse University’s Office of Research Good to Great Grant Program, which supports high-impact initiatives with strong potential for national reach.

Additional funding has come from a Humanities New York Post-Incarceration Humanities Partnership, generously supported by the Mellon Foundation and the CNY Humanities Corridor. At Syracuse University, the project is further supported by the Engaged Humanities Network, the Humanities Center, the SOURCE, Syracuse University Libraries and the Department of Writing Studies, Rhetoric and Composition.

As the initiative continues to expand, so do opportunities for new and innovative forms of engagement. In spring 2026, Berry launched Mend Fences, a podcast that offers members of the team a space to reflect on themes explored in Mend. The first episode, released in March and titled “Mental Health and Solidarity in Prison,” was inspired by Rebekha Nilsen’s 2026 Mend article “Permission to Grieve,” extending the essay’s exploration of loss, care and resistance through collective conversation.

Berry is also developing a book, Literacy and the Humanities After Prison, which examines how literacy and humanities-based practices shape the lives of people impacted by the criminal legal system.