October 3: Attend "Peace of the Action"!
On Sunday, October 3rd (NOTE new date!), FOR will present our annual Peace Prizes to four activists who are building a culture of peace in the midst of mistrust and war. The “Peace of the Action” celebration will feature wonderful world music, delicious food, a peace-centered art exhibition, and a special community report-back on the “One Nation Working Together” mass mobilization for economic and social justice taking place in Washington, DC the previous day. Tickets are just $35!
Our theme this year is Peace of the Action! As a play on words, Peace of the Action speaks to being a “piece” or a part of an active flow, and a state of wholeness or serenity within the movement for peace. This year’s peace prize recipients all reflect an active, strategic flow to peace in their lives and work.
Join us in honoring International Pfeffer Peace Prize winner Scott Kennedy, co-founder and Middle East program coordinator for the Resource Center for Nonviolence and former mayor of Santa Cruz, CA; Martin Luther King Jr. Peace Prize winner Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CODEPINK Women for Peace and Global Exchange; and Local Nyack Area Peace Prize winners Drs. Tashi Dolma and Tashi Rabten, founders of the Tibetan Home of Hope.
The program will also feature a special “report-back” from the October 2nd One Nation Working Together rally that is being held in Washington, DC. Civil rights activists, labor unions, immigrant rights workers, and peace people will come together in our nation’s capital that day to call for increased funding for jobs, education, and immigration reform, while ending the wars that are draining our nation’s treasury. FOR decided to change the date of our awards banquet (originally scheduled for Oct. 2), so that we can support this important national mobilization on Gandhi’s birthday in DC. We have also dramatically cut the ticket cost to the event by more than 50% so that many more can attend our special community event — held just one day after the One Nation rally.
We warmly invite you to attend our celebration and to help support Fellowship of Reconciliation’s ongoing work for nonviolence, peace, and social justice. Festivities will take place at FOR’s national headquarters at historic Shadowcliff Mansion, 521 North Broadway, Nyack, NY 10960, beginning with an Art Show and Sale featuring Hudson Valley artists (see bottom of message for selected artwork) that opens on September 25th and runs through to October 9th. The Peace Awards Celebration and One Nation Report-Back on Sunday, October 3rd, from 1 to 4 p.m., will offer an afternoon of sumptuous international foods, eclectic music (see bottom of message for featured artists), and personal reflections about the previous day’s gathering of hundreds of thousands of people of good will. “A Day in Memory of Peacemakers” is also being planned to commemorate those who committed themselves to peace and reconciliation during their lifetimes, and those whose lives were sacrificed in the continuing struggle for justice and nonviolent conflict resolution.
Tickets are just $35 per person. You are also invited to place a congratulatory message or advertisement in our Commemorative Journal (deadline is this Friday, September 10), or to become an Event Sponsor for $100 or more (which will help others to be able to attend). For more information, please contact Jonette O’Kelley Miller or Linda Kelly at: 845.358.4601, jmiller@forusa.org or, development@forusa.org.
Selected artwork exhibited during the peace award event:
“Children of Hope” by Ellen Mayer
“Globalization Profit Extractor” by Randolph SanMillan
“Windswept” by Gretchen Kane
Naaz Hosseini
Dang Show
