Operating at the intersection of development and community service, the Fenway Community Development Corporation (CDC) was hard hit by Covid. Last Thursday marked its first annual meeting in two years. Its leaders did not shy from describing the challenges they faced.

“The staff at Fenway CDC has had to do a lot of pivoting,” said Leah Camhi, executive director. She described 2020 as a “trifold pandemic”: Covid, plus a housing crisis and the persistent challenge of systemic inequity.

But Camhi said, “the Fenway CDC and the Fenway community persevered.”

By summer 2020 the corporation’s project pipeline was back up and running, said Richard Giordano, director of policy and community planning.

It was a year of firsts, not all of them bad.

“For the first time in well over a decade we have been building affordable housing.” said Nikki Flionis, board president.

Fenway CDC secured a parcel at 72 Burbank Street, where it plans to build a 27- unit, entirely affordable housing complex. Initial funding commitments are in hand. State and federal applications are in the works. After the nationwide protests in June 2020, the CDC formed a new committee on racial justice in housing. It aims to “advance conversations” and incorporate its work into all aspects of the CDC.And the CDC has thrown itself into the push to restore the #55 bus to pre pandemic service, a cause that has drawn public demonstrations and support from local, state and federal representatives.

John LaBella, Kristen Mobilia and Lifeboat Boston received this year’s awards for exemplary community service.

“This honor means a lot coming from the Fenway CDC,” said John LaBella, president of HousingWorks, who stressed the difficulty of organizing. “The effort to coalition build is like climbing Mount Everest.”

“We work through challenges, and we also celebrate great moments together,” said Kristen Mobilia, a business executive and community garden organizer.

She said the #55 bus line, affordable housing and elementary schools should be priorities for Fenway this year.

“What community service means to us is our declaration of interdependence,” said Glacier Grey, operations director at Lifeboat Boston, which distributes fresh food to residents. “Community service is making our nation great one contact at a time,” Grey added.

Keynote speaker Chuck Collins focused on the challenge of organizing communities to counterbalance the influence of large, anonymous corporate entities.

He said companies like Airbnb were taking rental units off the market and many residential properties had changed hands from local to large private equity companies.

“Part of what a group like CDC has to do is shadowbox these invisible giants,” said Collins, a senior fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and author of several books on inequality.

Cities should require projects to disclose their owners’ names and addresses, and expand tenant options to purchase their rentals, said Collins. He observed that Vancouver’s new policy of taxing vacancies at a higher rate than occupied units was a potential counterbalance to monied interests treating housing as an investment rather than a service.

Asked about the new Biden administration’s policies, Collins said “It’s all on the right track.” He especially praised a proposal to crack down on tax avoidance by the very wealthy.