Yesterday, The New York Women’s Foundation® (NYWF) Celebrating Women® Breakfast honored Secretary
Yesterday, The New York Women’s Foundation® (NYWF) Celebrating Women® Breakfast honored Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Domestic Workers Alliance Ai-jen Poo, and Executive Director of the Women’s Center for Education and Career Advancement Merble Reagon, at the Marriott Marquis in New York City. Secretary Clinton was awarded with The Century Award, while Ms. Poo and Ms. Reagon were awarded the Celebrating Women® Awards. Others in attendance included Ana L. Oliveira (President & CEO NYWF), Diana L. Taylor (NYWF Board Chair), Taina Bien-Aimé (NYWF Secretary), Lorraine Cortés-Vázquez (NYWF Treasurer), Abigail E. Disney (Honorary Chair), Helen LaKelly Hunt (NYWF Founding Mother & Chair Emerita), Betty Terrell-Cruz (NYWF Founding Mother), Christine Quinn (New York City Council Speaker), Elizabeth Krueger (New York State Senator, District of Manhattan), Charles J. Hynes (NY County District Attorney), Scott Stringer (Manhattan Borough President), Marty Markowitz (Brooklyn Borough President), John C. Liu (New York City Comptroller), Tina Brown (Editor in Chief Newsweek Daily Beast), Jean Shafiroff (Philanthropist), Louise Wachtmeister (Founder, Best of All Worlds), Tamsen Fadal (Anchor, WPIX 11), Phillip Bloch (Celebrity Stylist), Betty Terrell-Cruz (NYWF Founding Mother), Anita Channapati (Celebrating Women® Breakfast Co-Chair), Anne E. Delaney (NYWF Vice-Chair & Celebrating Women® Breakfast Co-Chair), and Robyn Brady Ince (Celebrating Women® Breakfast Co-Chair).
In twenty-five years, the NYWF will reach $33 million in funding to over 280 women-lead, nonprofit organizations, improving the lives of 5.4 million women and girls in New York City; 81% of those nonprofits succeed in thriving today. This year, the NYWF Celebrating Women® Breakfast had over 2,300 guests in attendance.
Honoree, Ai-jen Poo, also spoke regarding the work, “care, love and support,” that NYWF does which spans multiple generations. Ms. Poo noted that, “when women on the front lines of inequality come together to affect change, everyone wins.”
Ai-jen Poo has been organizing immigrant women workers in New York since 1996, where she started as the Women Workers Project organizer at CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities. In 2000 she helped start Domestic Workers United, an organization of nannies, housekeepers and elderly caregivers in New York organizing for power, respect, fair labor standards and to help build the social justice movement. DWU led the way to the passage of the first Domestic Workers Bill of Rights in 2010, historic legislation to extend basic labor protections to over 200,000 domestic workers in New York State. DWU helped to organize the first national meeting of domestic workers organizations at the US Social Forum in 2007, which resulted in the formation of the National Domestic Workers Alliance. In April 2010, she became Director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance. Ai-jen also serves on the Board of Social Justice Leadership, the Seasons Fund for Social Transformation, the Labor Advisory Board at Cornell ILR School, Momsrising.org, National Jobs with Justice, the New Labor Forum Editorial Board, Working America and the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy.
(Above picture: Ana Oliviera (President & CEO NYWF), Ai-jen Poo (Honoree), Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton (Honoree), Merble Reagon (Honoree), and Abigail E. Disney (Honorary Chair)) Pics via © James Edstrom