After thirteen years of honoring women who bridge religious divides, build community, and pursue justice, Auburn is proud to celebrate its 14th Annual Lives of Commitment Awards Breakfast.

This multifaith, intergenerational event offers a window into Auburn’s work across lines of difference to pursue justice, build community and heal the world.

This year’s breakfast will take place on June 3, 2010, 7:30 to 9:00 am, at Cipriani 42nd Street in New York City. The honorees are Nurah Amat-ullah, Violet L. Dease, and Jacki Zehner. The Young Healer Award, presented in partnership with The Sister Fund, will be given to Emma Bronznick Goldberg.  Musical guest is Emma's Revolution.

Immediately following the breakfast, Auburn host a panel discussion featuring this year's honorees entitled "Women, God and Money".  The panel will take place from 9:30 to 10:30 am in the Chapel Room at Cipriani.  Together with moderator Kathy LeMay, author of the acclaimed The Generosity Plan, the panel will explore the intersection of gender equality, religious conviction, and economic empowerment.  Click for more details.
 
For more information about the Breakfast and how to get tickets, call the Breakfast Benefit Office at 212.888.7003 or email locbreakfast@auburnseminary.org by May 28, 2010.

Nurah Amat-ullah was born in Trinidad and Tobago and immigrated to the United States in 1987. In addition to serving as a manuscript librarian at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Nurah is the founder and Executive Director of Muslim Women’s Institute for Research and Development, a nonprofit in the Bronx that seeks to ease human suffering – particularly for new immigrants – and to bridge religious divides. Nurah was a United Nations Volunteer in Seoul, South Korea, holds a certificate in Islamic Chaplaincy, and will graduate this Spring with a Multifaith Doctor of Ministry from New York Theological Seminary in partnership with Auburn.

Violet L. Dease has shown her love for all God’s people as a social worker in North Carolina and Washington, D.C., as the Vice President of Family Services at the Abyssinian Development Corporation, and as a long-time educator and advocate on behalf of incarcerated women and men, those living with HIV/AIDS, and those in need of housing. As Assistant Pastor of the historic Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, the Reverend Dease is the first woman to serve in such a capacity. A dynamic preacher, in 2005 the African American Pulpit honored Violet as one of “20 to Watch” under the age of 40.

Emma Bronznick Goldberg is this year’s “Young Healer” honoree. At 15, Emma is already a vibrant young activist and has addressed issues as diverse as genocide in Darfur (through a letter-writing campaign and a petition to the United Nations), rape in the Congo (by raising funds for a hospital), acceptance for lesbian and gay youth (through a revealing article on “words that hurt” in the newspaper at her Jewish day school), the environment (by co-founding the school’s Sustainability Network), and the cultural gender roles of Bedouin women in Israel (through an award-winning essay).

In 1996, Jacki Zehner was the youngest woman and first female trader to be invited into the partnership of Goldman Sachs. In 2002, she became a Founding Partner of Circle Financial Group, a private wealth management group, and serves on many nonprofit boards including the Women’s Funding Network, The Center for Work Life Policy, the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, and is President of the Jacquelyn and Gregory Zehner Foundation. Motivated by her Christian faith, Jacki is an impassioned philanthropic visionary committed to advancing gender equality. She writes, speaks and consults on the benefits of gender diversity and gender lens investing. You can find Jacki leveraging her unique expertise to bridge the corporate, philanthropic, religious and nonprofit sectors on her blog (pursepundit.blogspot.com).