Cherry Hill Sun

Tag: nonprofit

  • Kim keynote speaker at Women, Words and Wisdom panel

    For more than 10 years, Women, Words and Wisdom (WWW) have been holding conversations about women’s issues. This year, the tradition continues on Thursday, Oct. 17, where the group will be holding its annual educational panel fundraiser at the Legacy Club at Woodcrest in Cherry Hill. The event is ticketed and will run from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.

    Though the group has only been a nonprofit with a 501c3 status for the past three years, Marlton resident and president of the organization Jo-Anne Weiner explained that WWW has existed for many years before that, since she had worked in the IRS more than 10 years ago. It had started small, as a conversation at a restaurant with women who wrote books and from there, it had grown into more formal discussions.

    Throughout the year, WWW aims to hold a fundraiser and a scholarship essay contest in the spring and a more educational panel and gathering in the fall.

    “The money we raise at our events go to local women struggling to pay for college tuition and textbooks,” Weiner said. “… Women, Words, and Wisdom’s mission is to inform women about current issues so they can make beneficial life choices for themselves.”

    This year’s theme is “Celebrating Women who Advocate for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” and will feature Congressman Andy Kim as the keynote speaker as well as the following panelists:

    • Robin Bilazarian, Brief Therapy Expert
    • Lynda Calderone, Esq., Co-founding Partner of Calderone McKay, LLC
    • Dr. Herb Conaway, New Jersey Assemblyman
    • Denise Davis, Financial Advisor and member of NAWBO South Jersey
    • Reverend Eric Dobson, Deputy Director of Fair Share Housing Center
    • Sarah Holley, President of the Burlington County Federation of Democratic Women

    The panelists will be speaking on the theme of “Successfully Thriving in a World of Uncertainty” and will speak to equal pay for women, education and women’s health.

    Weiner explained that their main theme was in alignment with the Women’s History Month Theme (which was diversity, equity and inclusion this year), and that the topic for the panel discussion came about after reading through supreme court decisions.

    “The supreme level court decisions as well as legislative decisions that affect women negatively and the most egregious is the one we most concentrated on,” Weiner said. “If we saw these issues were occurring frequently where it was negatively impacting women, we built (the panel) around that.”

    Each year, the nonprofit finds experts in the field for whatever topics they are discussing to help educate women so they can think about the information they are getting and make an educated decision later.

    Panelists will have around 20 minutes to speak on each of the three topics– equal pay, education and women’s health– before opening the discussion up for questions.

    Special to The Sun
    Women, Words and Wisdom will hold its annual panel and fundraiser on Thursday, Oct. 17 featuring keynote speaker Andy Kim.

    This year, they will also be honoring Loretta Winters, Gloucester County National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) with the Ida B. Wells award. The award was something they have only recently started giving out in honor of a woman whose bravery and tenacity matches that of Ida B. Wells, who led an anti-lynching crusade through investigative journalism.

    Weiner described Winters as someone who “tries to help everybody she meets.”

    “Every group she meets, she finds out what their needs are and finds a way to help them,” Weiner said. “She just never stops helping others.”

    To learn more, visit https://www.womenwordsandwisdom.org/.

  • Local nonprofits recognized at award ceremony

    Courtesy of Debbie Troy Photography

    Bill Brown (left) accepts the Best Collaborative Effort of the Year Award on behalf of Joe Murphy, who was unable to attend with Darlene Macrina Supnick (right).

    The Nonprofit Development Center of Southern New Jersey (NDCSNJ) held its 11th annual awards ceremony in Mt. Laurel on Tuesday, Sept. 24 where they honored a number of notable leaders and nonprofits in South Jersey including Haddonfield’s “Ballroom Dancing for the Blind and Visually Impaired.”

    This year, for the first time, the NDCSNJ honored two individuals or nonprofits per category.

    “Since 2006, the NDCSNJ has been dedicated to supporting area non-profits in delivering essential services and fulfilling their missions,” said MaryAnn Ragone DeLambily, NDCSNJ Awards Event chairperson. “We are proud to play a part in helping them excel by providing networking, training, education, capacity building, promotion and more.”

    “I’ve been in this space for more than 35 years, so my favorite thing about the event is bringing visibility to nonprofits that would not normally get any other visibility other than this,” said Nicole Nance, executive director of NDCSNJ. “We get to showcase amazing work that they do, they do it every day whether they make a dollar or don’t make a dollar, whether they have a big budget or a shoe string budget, and it’s so rewarding to be able to say, ‘Wow, look at this group, they’re doing it with or without millions of dollars and look at how many people they impact just because of their heart.’

    ” … The work (nonprofits) do every day–often behind the scenes and without much fanfare–touches lives in profound ways.”

    This year’s award recipients included the following:

    • NPO Young Professionals of the Year: Kellie Haines (WheatonArts, based in Millville) and Rachael Glashan Rupisan (Alice Paul Institute, based in Mt. Laurel).
    • Best Collaborative Effort of the Year: Forgotten Angels Equine Rescue based, based in Medford (Darlene Macrina Supnick), Ballroom Dancing for the Blind and Visually Impaired (Joe Murphy, Haddonfield).
    • NPO Community Partners of the Year: Angelo Harold (Owner of TeamHarold Transportation and co-owner of Stand Out From The Crowd Rentals and Inflatables) and Dr. June DePonte Sernak (Center for Family Services, based in Camden).
    • NPO Executives of the Year: Lucy DuBose (Faces of Change Inc, based in Camden) and Patricia Legge (Volunteer UP Legal Clinic, based in Camden).
    • NPOs of the Year: Tri-State Canine Response Team, based in Cherry Hill and GateKeepers Ministry, based in Pennsauken.
    • Chairman’s Awards: New Jersey Center for NonProfits based in Mercerville and Volunteer Center of South Jersey based in Sewell/Jersey Cares based in Livingston.

    The NDCSNJ was started 18 years ago when three people had a vision of bringing professional development for nonprofits to South Jersey, Nance shared.

    “You have many people who start a nonprofit just out of their passion, out of their zeal, some people out of trauma, some people out of joy, some people, just out of their heart …,” Nance said. “They just want to do good and help people and want to do something to make their mark on the world. You’ve got to follow guidelines and follow rules, so we help with that.”

    One of the two Best Collaborative Award of the Year awards went to Haddonfield resident Joe Murphy, as the initiative involved collaborative efforts from the Haddonfield Lions, who have a goal of helping the blind and visually impaired; dance instructor Gene la Pierre who had experience; and employees from Best Works Industries, that employs many blind workers as well as volunteers from the Haddonfield 65 Club, Rotary Club, Dance Haddonfield and Grace Episcopal Church who assisted as drivers.

    More recently, the program has expanded from 10 to 30 dancers and has also involved the Haddonfield Memorial High School LEO Club to assist dancers from the cars up the stairs to the elevator and dance area, and the program has also expanded to the Philadelphia region.

    To learn more about any of the nonprofits recognized, visit https://npdcsnj.org/.