Emily Bramhall, a longtime business owner on Main street in Vineyard Haven, and for an equal number of years a hardworking volunteer with a number of Island nonprofits, is this year’s recipient of the Spirit of the Vineyard Award, given annually by Hospice of Martha’s Vineyard.

Surrounded by her colleagues and staff, friends and family members, Ms. Bramhall received her award at a morning breakfast gathering at the high school culinary arts dining room on Wednesday. The pleasant affair included a mild roast of Ms. Bramhall, who is a former board member for Hospice and the president and longest serving board member for the Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation, among other things.

In an interview before the event, Ms. Bramhall said she was pleased and surprised to learn she would receive the prestigious award. “I was absolutely floored when I got the call from Polly [Brown], three weeks ago,” she said. She said she knows the previous recipients of the award, many of them well, and to be put on a par with them was deeply touching.

“As I travel this community, the spirit of the Vineyard is overwhelming. To have an award named after [this spirit] and to be chosen to receive an award is truly an honor,” said Cape and Islands Rep. Timothy Madden, who presented Ms. Bramhall with a state house citation.

Accolades came from Polly Brown, board member and treasurer of Hospice of Martha’s Vineyard, and a previous recipient and cocreator of the award. Ms. Bramhall is credited for having been a leader on a committee that created an endowment for Hospice, described as a critical bedrock for the Vineyard organization.

The Spirit of the Vineyard award honors someone in the community who has served for one or more nonprofit organizations, and whose work has made a difference to individuals and to the community. The criteria for selection includes selflessness, the range and depth of service performed and length of service.

Part of the pleasure in seeing Ms. Bramhall receive the award has to do with her ordinarily private nature, said Hospice executive director Terre Young. “She is a low-key person. She manages herself under the radar. But when the fire is hot, the going gets tough, she rises to the occasion,” Ms. Young said.

Praise came from Adam Moore, executive director of Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation, where Ms. Bramhall currently serves as president. For being the longest-serving board member and for serving as president of the foundation since 2008, Mr. Moore said: “Emily has spirit. This award is perfectly apt. She approaches everything with spirit; she is positive, optimistic. The way she likes to see it, the glass is three-quarters full.”

Mr. Moore also said: “I think Emily is our North Star; she has guided us through some tumultuous times; she has provided steady, inspired leadership that Sheriff’s Meadow needed as it moved from one executive director to another.”

The broad summary of Ms. Bramhall’s work came from her longtime friend Ronald H. Rappaport, an Edgartown attorney and previous recipient of the award. He described how Ms. Bramhall brought change to the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital board, helped with the final design of the Vineyard Haven Steamship Authority terminal and brought change to Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation.

“Sheriff’s Meadow, it was heavily Edgartown oriented, a mostly older group that needed new life and new vision and new energy. Emily came in and brought that. She brought a bunch of young people onto the board. She brought year-round people. It was her theme. She said, let us make these properties more open to the public.”

And about her work on the hospital board, Mr. Rappaport said: “She brought in young people, energy and vision,” he said. He credited her for putting the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital board of directors back on the “right course.”

Melinda Loberg, also a past recipient of the Spirit of the Vineyard award, also made remarks.

When it came time to accept the award, presented to her by Polly Brown, Ms. Bramhall deflected the praise to others around her. She credited those in the audience, singled out for special praise the staff at her store Bramhall and Dunn, now in its 28th year, for granting her the time to serve in her various volunteers roles in the community. Extra praise went to Wendy Whipple for more than 20 years of loyal service at Ms. Bramhall’s store.

“Everybody here is an inspiration. When people and organizations are so wonderful and ask for your help, it is an honor to be asked,” Ms. Bramhall said.

The event also included an announcement about a surprise charitable gift to mark the occasion. Ms. Brown and Mr. Moore reported that $15,000 will go to two organizations, Hospice of Martha’s Vineyard (two $5,000 donations), and Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation (one $5,000 gift) from Peter E. (Tony) Guernsey and Mike Riley of the Wilmington Trust Co. and M& T Bank. Mr. Guernsey and Mr. Riley are longtime personal friends of the Bramhall family. Half of the Hospice honorarium was given by Mr. Guernsey’s family to recognize the work done by Hospice in the past.

Ms. Bramhall, who is 52 and the mother of two grown children, told the Gazette that her energy and enthusiasm for volunteer work springs directly from her appreciation and love for the Vineyard. She also credited her parents, Kib and Tess Bramhall, and her late grandmother, Emily, who she said saw community service one of the most important roles in a person’s life.

“This is such an amazing community. There are already so many extraordinary examples of people who give so much throughout this community,” Ms. Bramhall said.