Jamal Joseph wins Purpose Prize

The year was 1997, and Harlem was like “a prison without bars,” Mr. Joseph said. “The crack epidemic was ravaging the community and buildings were crumbling,” he said. “And that was when I decided to create an organization to help young people understand there are other ways out, other options, other tools.”

In response to the wrenching scene that day, Mr. Joseph co-founded the Impact Repertory Theater, a nonprofit performing arts group for teenagers, with his wife, Joyce, the screenwriter Alice Arlen and Voza Rivers, the executive producer and founding member of the New Heritage Theater Group, the oldest black nonprofit theater company in New York City.

On Friday, Mr. Joseph was awarded a $25,000 prize in recognition and support of his work.

He is one of six recipients of the 2015 Purpose Prizefor Americans 60 and older, created by Encore.org, a nonprofit group that is building a movement to tap the skills and experience of people in midlife and beyond to improve communities.