This Labor Day, we’re celebrating a lifetime of work. In 1968, Mangogna opened the doors to the nation’s first halfway house for formerly incarcerated women, and nearly sixty years of labor later, that same commitment to community justice has earned him the highest honor his field can give.
This Labor Day, Magdala House is celebrating a different kind of labor, nearly sixty years of it. Thomas J. Mangogna, President and CEO of Magdala House in St. Louis, has spent almost sixty years leading community justice work and building institutions that give people a way forward. On Monday, August 31, 2026, the International Community Justice Association (ICJA) gave him one of its own, naming him the recipient of the 2026 Margaret Mead Award, the highest honor the Association presents.
The Executive Committee and Board of Directors made the decision unanimously. In its nomination letter, ICJA wrote that Mangogna’s career “embodies the spirit of this award,” pointing to his years of service as ICJA President and to decades of work improving the lives of justice-involved individuals and strengthening the communities that welcome them home.
In 1965, Mangogna was a founding member of our board of directors. He became our first Executive Director in 1968. Under his leadership, we established one of the nation’s first halfway house for formerly incarcerated women and, in time, three more for men.
It was a new idea at the time, that women leaving incarceration needed more than a bed. They needed housing, structure, and people who believed they could rebuild their lives. Over the next decade, Mangogna grew that idea into a fuller mission, adding parenting programs, an early and urgent response to the AIDS crisis, and homes for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
“Magdala has never been afraid to help the underserved and the poorly served,” Mangogna said. “For nearly 60 years, we have stepped forward to meet people where they are, offering hope, support and opportunities to rebuild their lives.”
By the early 1970s, his reputation reached far beyond St. Louis. He served as ICJA President from 1972 to 1974, the same organization that would go on to honor him more than fifty years later, and during that time, in 1973, he co-authored “Guidelines and Standards for Halfway Houses and Community Treatment Centers,” a national report funded by the U.S. Department of Justice that shaped how halfway houses and community-based treatment programs operated across the country.
In 1977, he received the E.R. Cass Correctional Achievement Award from the American Correctional Association, the highest award the Association gives annually. He also served as a member and chair of the Commission on Accreditation for Corrections, the independent body that accredits adult and juvenile correctional facilities, community residential services, and training academies nationwide.
He returned as President and CEO in 2017, and the work continued. Under his leadership, we launched our Adult Day program and a full continuum of care for individuals experiencing homelessness, from emergency shelter through transitional housing and rapid rehousing, work that has since moved hundreds of our neighbors into stable, permanent housing. Staff who have worked alongside him for years describe the same thing over and over: a leader who shows up, who remembers names, and who has never stopped believing that people deserve the chance to change the direction of their lives.
The Margaret Mead Award has been presented since 1980 to individuals whose leadership, innovative ideas, and lasting contributions have shaped community justice work nationally and internationally. Past recipients include U.S. Senator Rob Portman, Dr. Joan Petersilia, and Reverend Jesse Jackson. It is rare company, and rarer still for someone to receive it from an organization he once led himself.
Asked about the recognition, Mangogna said:
“I am deeply honored to receive the Margaret Mead Award. For nearly sixty years, I have had the privilege of working alongside others who believed, as I do, that people deserve the opportunity to rebuild their lives with dignity and support. Whatever contribution I have made has never been mine alone. This recognition belongs to all of those who have shared in that work, and I am profoundly grateful.” said Mangogna.
How You Can Support This Work
Mangogna’s story is really the story of everyone who has walked through our doors since 1968, every woman who needed a second chance, every adult with intellectual and developmental disabilities who has found a home through our programs, every neighbor we have helped move from a shelter bed into a home of their own. Honors like the Margaret Mead Award recognize one person, but they reflect the work of an entire community.
This Labor Day, you can help us continue that work. Your gift supports the same mission Mangogna has carried for nearly sixty years: giving people the opportunity to better their lives.
