UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Patricia “Patty” Bode, founder and president of the nonprofit Remember Love Recovery Project, has been named the 2026 recipient of the Linda Stein Upstander Award administered by Penn State University Libraries. The mission of the Remember Love Recovery Project — founded in memory of Bode’s son, musician and artist Ryan Bode Moriarty — is to use art, education and human connection to destigmatize addiction disorder and end overdose.

Bode brings culturally sustaining and justice-centered arts activism centered on human dignity and worth to PK-12 public schools, higher education, museums and community settings, such as shelters for the unhoused, prisons and health clinics. Her teaching and leadership experiences include PK-12 public schools as an art teacher, curriculum leader and school principal, and higher education settings as a teacher educator, assistant dean and researcher.

The Linda Stein Upstander Award honoring Joyce and Diane Froot annually supports social justice activists from around the world whose artistic or scholarly work promotes upstander activities. An online legacy statement about the Linda Stein Upstander Award describes Joyce Froot and Linda Stein’s friendship spanning nearly five decades and Froot’s active collection of Stein’s artwork.

To pursue her project, “Upstanders of the Remember Love Recovery Project,” Bode will receive $5,000, which includes a travel grant, and will have full access to Penn State’s Linda Stein Art Education Collection in the University Libraries’ Eberly Family Special Collections and Stein’s papers at Smith College Libraries’ Special Collections, as well as Stein’s websites haveartwilltravel.org and lindastein.com. Bode’s resulting work will be developed for publication and archived in an online repository managed by the University Libraries.

In her application, Bode wrote that her research curriculum project will explore “how arts-based education about substance use prevention and recovery is an Upstander Intervention to reduce stigma around addiction disorder in secondary school communities.” The project will develop and pilot a social justice artmaking curriculum in collaboration with Greg Lawrence, art teacher at Watkins Middle School in Pataskala, Ohio, with the goal of subsequently expanding the curriculum to other schools and communities. The curriculum will include the themes of Upstander, Power, Identity, Displacement and Justice from Linda Stein’s Have Art: Will Travel! Inc. for Courageous Kindness Curricular Team.

Bode also wrote, “The Upstanders of the Remember Love Recovery Project is an outgrowth of RLRP values, which assert (in part): Every human life deserves and is worthy of care, respect, support and connection. Connection is knowing you are loved and cared for. Connection is being bound to one another on this journey. Human connection sustains recovery and is critical to the recovery journey.”

Bode will be honored and offer a presentation about her research project from noon to 1:30 p.m. on March 25, 2027, on Penn State’s University Park campus.

Justice activists from around the world whose artistic or scholarly work promotes upstander activities are encouraged to apply for the Linda Stein Upstander Award. Applicants are expected to have specific plans to research archival materials from Penn State’s Linda Stein Art Education Collection and Stein’s papers at Smith College Libraries’ Special Collections for their proposed projects.

Interested applicants may visit the online application site for more information. The annual application deadline for the 2027 award is 11:59 p.m. on Feb. 1.