While she was growing up off Hope Street in Bristol, Susan Remieres Donovan was always taken with the arts community around town, browsing through the paintings and sculptures that would periodically set up in the Linden Place ballroom.

"Every time there was an art exhibit at Linden, I would go in. I was so taken with that," Ms. Donovan said. "When I was an adult, I remembered that, so when the Bristol Art Museum needed help, I jumped in, because I thought having an art museum downtown is a great thing."

Ms. Donovan joined the Bristol Art Museum board and helped establish it as a downtown presence, eventually helping it land its own permanent space in the former barn at Linden Place, which she also helped save from a potential condominium development.

"It started there and just never stopped," Ms. Donovan said of her penchant for community service. "Once people see you doing some things, there's more to do."

Project after project and charitable organization after charitable organization followed, giving Ms. Donovan a near full-time job volunteering for the community. It's the reason the 4th of July Committee is honoring her as this year's Hattie Brown Award winner.

Named in honor of the late 4th of July Committee member who was well-known for her charitable contributions and community activism, the committee presents the award each July 4 during Patriotic Exercises at the Colt School. It is awarded to a Bristolian who shows the same spirit of charity and community service Hattie Brown was known for.

"I knew Hattie Brown. I remember seeing her everywhere. She was a presence," Ms. Donovan said. "I was so surprised and humbled (to get the award). There are so many people who are deserving in Bristol."

That includes Ms. Donovan, who's work for the community actually began when she was a young Girl Scout growing up in Bristol. Led by her parents' example, she often volunteered at the Rhode Island Veterans Home.

"That was a tough one, feeding people who couldn't feed themselves," Ms. Donovan said. "My parents were big into volunteering. It's just something we did."

In addition to Linden Place and the art museum, Ms. Donovan, a semi-retired teacher who ran for Town Council last year, has worked with Save Bristol Harbor, helping to stave off a liquified natural gas facility in Mount Hope Bay, the Bristol Warren Educational Foundation, Voices and Visions for Bristol, St. Michael's Church and the Bristol Warren Special Olympics Team, among others.

But perhaps her most significant contribution to the community is helping provide housing for those less fortunate.

While she was working with St. Michael's in the 1980s, the church received a sizable donation, which it wanted to give to Habitat for Humanity, the non-profit group that builds homes and turns them over with an interest-free mortgage to those in need of housing. At the time, there was no Habitat chapter in the East Bay, meaning the money would go to Providence and out of the local community.

Instead, Ms. Donovan started a new affiliate on the East Bay, turning that donation and several more she solicited into a home in Newport, the first in the region for Habitat. Since then, she has helped build four more houses, including one in Bristol that is nearing its final stages of construction, helping give people a home they may never have been able to afford on their own.

"When you hand over those keys to a family, it's very emotional. It changes their lives," Ms. Donovan said. "You can't save the world, but you can help people one family at a time."

Helping people is a family tradition Ms. Donovan has passed to her children. She and her husband, Glenn, have three kids — Glenn, Colleen and Cara, one of whom spent a year in a Peruvian rainforest to work on clean water service and public health, and is currently in Bolivia working on similar projects.

"It's just part of our life, I guess," Ms. Donovan said of serving the community, something she plans to continue, and urges others to take part in. "A lot of our social life is community service. There are lots of opportunities to serve and lots of people who do. But just imagine if everybody did community service."