 Welcome to International Women's Day celebration in Burlington, Vermont. This is our fifth year of celebrating this important holiday. Folks who are getting food, please feel free to do so and take a seat whenever you feel like it. It's also fine to get up during the presentation, then get some food, and then come back. Anyway, I wanted to welcome you here to this event. And it's the result of the work of this volunteer panel. We've been planning this event for, this is our fifth year, as I said. And so I want to thank all my planners, because this wouldn't come together without all of us. So today, we honor and pay tribute to the contributions women and girls bring to the world and to our own city of Burlington. They bring to our communities intelligence, warmth, nurturing, strength, grit, and fire. Look around and see the women and girls who make up such an important part of the fabric of our city. We welcome all who have come to celebrate them. Thanks for coming. Before we get started, I'd like to thank Burlington High School for hosting our event. It's a wonderful venue, complete with international flags all over the place, and the tremendous support from the tech person here and from the food service company, the Burlington School Company that has provided water and lemonade over there along with the food. Our main sponsors, however, are the Caroline Fund and Ned and Joanne Winterbottom. We thank them very much for underwriting the cost of this event. In kind contributions are no small thing either. The Zonta Club of Burlington comprises a few members of our planning group, and they are with us every year, and we really appreciate their assistance. The Peace and Justice Center has helped us, along with Burlington City Arts, with promoting our event. Thank you all for braving this terrible storm of it. So we've held back the weather, so hopefully we can get through our program here. Please see also the back of the program for additional contributors that have provided us with all this amazing food. Special thank you to D'Vorca Gatto. I hope I'm pronouncing your name right, D'Vorca, who has also handmade some of the food that you find on the table over there. Our sponsors contributed generously what they could, but our shoestring operation could use a little more help. If you would like to support our efforts, we would greatly appreciate any contribution you could make. The donation jars are located along with the food on those tables over there. Thank you so much. Couple of housekeeping notes. The bathrooms are in the hallway that you entered from off to the right-hand side. Snacks and drinks also, you found those pretty easily. And feel free to come and go throughout the program as you like, but please do so quietly. Anyway, to start off our program, Moreau Weinberger, our mayor, just re-elected, who's unable to attend, has declared a proclamation on honor of March 8th International Women's Day. And Doreen Kraft, who's the director of city arts, is going to come up and read the proclamation for us. Yeah, I'm just trying to keep it up for you. Great. So it's my great pleasure to read this proclamation this evening. Whereas the city of Burlington recognizes the importance of ensuring the rights of women of all ages so they can lead secure, creative, healthy, and free lives. And whereas, in spite of international efforts to achieve equity, many girls and women struggle against discrimination and second-class citizenship remain uneducated and poor and are often victims of physical and sexual abuse. And whereas International Women's Day on March 8th provides a worldwide holiday to educate all people about the condition of women and girls throughout the world. And whereas the city wishes to use this day to honor and celebrate the contributions of women of all nations as mothers, daughters, grandmothers, relative friends, and colleagues to our society and to recommit ourselves to respecting the rights of all women. And whereas the city wishes to take this opportunity to celebrate the diversity of Burlington's residents and to learn from women in our community about their experiences and their aspirations. And whereas the city welcomes and celebrates the arrival to our community of new American families, including many women. And whereas the city appreciates the contributions of the many women who work for the city of Burlington, delivering services and supporting the community. And whereas the city applauds International Women's Day honorees, Sue Gillis, publisher of Vermont Woman, a local newspaper, Barbara Jordan, a fitness expert and advocate, Dolly Fleming, director of Mercy Connections, and Tarana Burke, originator of the Me Too movement. Now therefore, I, Maro Weinberger, mayor of the city of Burlington, wouldn't that be fun? The city of Burlington, Vermont, do hereby proclaim March 8th to be International Women's Day. Thanks, Doreen. Now, one of our planners, Sandy Baird, is gonna give us a little brief history of International Women's Day. As I mentioned, as Lou mentioned, my name is Sandy Baird and I'm from the Caroline Fund. I wanna talk a little bit about the origin of International Women's Day and also allow you to question or wonder why International Women's Day took so long to be recognized here in the United States. International Women's Day came out of an international day for women in New York City in 1908. However, it was made an international holiday in 1917. And I wanna mention why I believe that it was in 1917 and in Russia, or as it was called then, the Soviet Union. In 1917, it was recognized as International Women's Day throughout the world. The reason I believe it was was 1917 was in the middle of the most catastrophic war, the beginning of the most catastrophic wars that this world has seen. It was the World War I. And the Russians in 1917, as a reaction, I think, to their enormous losses in World War I, withdrew from World War I and created of what we now call, and they call, the Soviet Union. So in 1917, there was a recognition that this huge revolution had happened in Russia. And it was the result of war. It was a result of a real mood for peace, their revolution in the entire world. At that time, the Russians and the Soviets honored women by proclaiming March 8th the International Women's Day. And after that, it was celebrated all over the world. However, it was never really celebrated that much in the United States. I don't know why, I'll leave you to wonder why. But it was not celebrated in the United States, although it was all over the world. And I just wanna tell you a personal story in that history. I was a professor at Burlington College for a very long time and I ran a free legal clinic on Saturday mornings. And one morning, one of the students in that clinic arrived with roses for all the women, all the people that were going to attend the clinic that day. He was from Russia or from Moldova, which at that time was part of the Russian Empire, basically. Anyway, and he brought us all roses and he reminded me that it was International Women's Day, a fact that I had forgotten. So from that day on, we, on this planning committee, and I really wanna thank Lou Andrews because she's the enormous planner of the whole group. She's kind of the boss of the group. And she's done a fabulous job in keeping this holiday alive for all of us here in Burlington. So welcome, I'm so glad that you're here and let's make it a promise that from now on, the United States will recognize women and their and girls on this very important holiday. Thank you. Thank you, Sandy. Now, we're going to have our guest speaker who is Robin Lloyd, but Doreen Craft is gonna do a brief intro. I was told to be very brief. So I have known Robin for almost 50 years. We have been friends, film partners, collaborators and worked, okay, better, is that good? And worked on many, many different community events, pageants and festivals together. Robin has a deep passion for justice and non-violence and wants one to be achieved through the other. She believes that women have a unique ability to build a more peaceful world and her life is an example because she has dedicated her life's work to this end. Robin comes from a family of social activists and writers and publishers from her grandfathers, her father and her grandmother, Lola Maverick Lloyd, who was very involved with trying to prevent world war one from happening. And Robin wrote a play about Lola, her grandmother and took that play on the road, including carrying a bust of her grandmother as part of that wonderful expression. She is a founder, a co-founder of the Peace and Justice Coalition. She is a strong advocate and a member of Wilf and she is a tax resister. She's even spent some time in jail. I didn't know if you knew that about Robin. I went to visit her when she was down in that nasty place. And what did- Not for a felony, you might say. No, it wasn't for a felony. Robin was protesting and she climbed a fence and illegally entered state property. But what did Robin do with that period of her life is she really got to know the women in that prison and to become an advocate for their causes, both inside and when her term was over. So tonight, Robin is gonna speak about the significant moments in Burlington women's history and I'm very proud to introduce you to Robin Lloyd. Okay, so hello everyone. This is so exciting that I got invited to introduce this International Women's Day and the fact that they made such a perfect selection of women to honor. I mean, it's honoring the mind and honoring the body and honoring compassion through the mercy connection. So I just think it was very cleverly put together. I just want to say about last night that I'm sure you heard the victory of the ballot item number six at relating to the F-35 at Burlington Airport. I mean, to my mind, this was a feminist victory, although we didn't talk about it that way at all. And because it was a victory for children and for housing and against militarism and metal and killing. So in that sense, I think we really should take credit for that. So here is International Women's Day, but it's also Women's History Month. So I'd like to take a few steps backwards and then look forward. I found in my archives a copy of Common Woman from 1981. And I'm wondering how many people were involved or wrote for that magazine, Peggy, yeah, great, all right. So it was really a radical feminist movement paper that covered the history of the women in the greater Burlington area from 1978 to 1984, long before the LGBTQ acronym became popular and publicized and went mainstream. It had no ads, and so it was really a grassroots voice, you can see from it here, printed on newsprint. The 1981 issue that had an article that I had forgotten that I had written, it was titled Nukes Abortion and Stopping the Worms. Okay, worms. In those days, we had weird acronyms and so worms was white, old, rich men. Okay. And actually the whole issue was devoted to women in peace. Reagan had just been elected and dictators were applauding from around the world. The Cold War suddenly became a lot colder and Reagan was heard on a mic saying, I'll make legislation to outlaw Russia. We begin bombing in five minutes. It's too bad he didn't have Twitter. I mean, I'm sure he would have been a great Twitter writer in those days. But it was a really crazy time when you think about it. At that time, I ran for Congress twice on the Citizens Party ticket. Bernie was elected for mayor at that point in 81, but my point in bringing this up is that it was a mere year and a half after Reagan took office that we men and women and men organized the largest peace demonstration in US history in June of 1982 in New York City. We in Vermont led the parade with bread and puppet theater and our proliferation of signs saying, this city Burlington voted for the nuclear freeze, Woodstock voted for the nuclear freeze and it brought a new concept into the peace movement, the idea of a unilateral stop to nuclear weapons development. It had an impact on Reagan and by his reelection in 1984, he had softened his position. But the reason I'm bringing this up is that I think we're in that position right now. We have a WORM in the White House right now and I believe that widespread movements for change are going to blossom this spring as it did in the spring of 1982. But before going forward, I want to touch on a few other highlights of women's peace history on the international level. There was the women's effort at Grenham Commons in England to encircle a US cruise missile base. Women camped out there for years and it was their determination and energy that really closed down that base after years of effort. Peggy was there, I don't know if any others got to that wonderful event. And then in 1995, the United Nations fourth world conference on women in Beijing, China, it was the most extraordinary gathering of women the world had ever seen. I got there on a peace train that started in Eastern Europe and then crossed the great steps of China all the way to Beijing. It was organized by the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, which Doreen mentioned earlier, the one that my grandmother was involved in. And I made a document of it which you can see on YouTube, peace train to Beijing. It's our long document about the train experience and what happened in Beijing. And we met and talked and suffered and heard of the suffering and joys of women from around the world. And of often the needless suffering women were experiencing. You know, male directed misogyny. I was reminded by an article in Vermont Woman that Sugilis just wrote about stiletto heels and how it conveys in the modern day a kind of eroticism but also and also heighten power. I mean, the mainstream media talk shows women are almost always wearing those stiletto heels and short skirts now. But it also has another side to it which men know that the woman can't run away if she's very fast at least, if she's wearing high heels. And the connection to that to the Beijing conference was I attended a talk by a Chinese woman whose grandmother had had her feet bound so that she was in a sense partially crippled and she made the connection then to that way of oppressing women and connecting it to the stiletto heels. We learned at the conference about all the other discriminations against women, ways to keep us oppressed. And you know, what I came out of that was thinking was that it's one thing to suffer from poverty and natural disasters that are common to all people but it's something else to hear directly from women who endure the deeply embedded male chauvinism and patriarchal systems that not only crippled women's lives in China but you know, in other countries the dowry deaths in India that take place because families, some families are in conflict over the amount of dowry should be and often the young wife is the victim. And then of course in African countries the continued widespread use of genital mutilation for young girls. So you know, there I became immersed in global sisterhood really and it has inspired me ever since. Women who are fighting multiple oppressions and winning their rights. And out of that came, I think one of the amazing developments was a resolution passed by the United States Security Council called Security Council Resolution 1325. And this is a resolution that mandates that all at times of conflict and in attempts to resolve conflict of wars in different cities inside and outside of countries rather, women have to have a seat at the negotiating table and her signature needs to be on the final contract. There have been mixed results from this resolution. It was passed in 2000, Hillary Clinton was very supportive of it. But at least it gives women in conflict areas a handle with which to promote women's rights which are often forgotten in the midst of conflict and resolution of conflict. And most recently women have been the impetus behind the Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty which was signed by 122 countries and which prohibits the development, testing, production, manufacturing, acquisition or even threatened use of nuclear weapons. And it will enter into force once it's been ratified by 50 states. The petition that it may be moving amongst you, oh there, all right, our greet has it is a petition from the women's international lead for peace and freedom to sign. And we will be, we already have something like 5,000 signatures that have been accumulated for that but we need more. So finally, I want to point out one more example of women taking action for peace. Women joined hands and crossed the DMZ zone, the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea. Yeah, and they sent a very powerful message out that was of course ignored by most of the mainstream media. Women want and need to participate in international negotiations and foreign policy processes. War and peace should not be decided just by the men with guns. War affects all people and peace can benefit all people, men and women. So, thank you. So, you know, let's go out and let's challenge authority and get ready for the many flowers that are going to bloom this spring. I think this spring will be like the spring of 1982 after a year and a half of Reagan where we will be having a year and a half of Trump. And I think people are ready for it. Whatever it may be called, there's the Children's March is happening, the Poor People's Campaign, which kicks off on Mother's Day, May 13th. The Peace and Justice Center is sponsoring a peace conference on the 12th of May. The anti-war groups are mobilizing as well. And, you know, definitely the yeast is rising. So the Me Too movements and the It's Time and Time's Up movements together with Black Lives Matter, I think will be leading these demands for real democracy. So let's hope it includes a demand that our foreign policy shifts from blustering and threats to diplomacy and collaboration for peace. Thank you. She already mentioned it. I don't think it was totally called. Oh, yeah. I just want to mention why I said Robin didn't go to jail for a felony because she didn't. She went for a noble act. There was a demonstration at the School of America. You have to pardon the light. There was a demonstration at the School of America in Fort Benning, Georgia, which many women and men of our community always would attend every spring. And you weren't supposed to step over the line onto the school's property, correct? The School of the Americas also is a place where many military people from other culture, from other countries, particularly Latin America, were trained to be essentially assassins, right? And so Robin was at these demonstrations where she went every year. And that year she did step over that line and then was put in jail for trespass, right? And she served, I couldn't believe it, for 18 months or something like that. Three months. Well, anyway, three months. Hard labor, splitting rocks, no. Well, thank you very much, Robin and Sandy. And I want to thank all of you. In fact, I'm going to take your picture because I am so happy with such a big turnout here. Thank you for coming. Next up on our program is this, now we're going to begin with our awardees. And first, our awardee is going to be introduced by Sandy Baird. Our first awardee is Sue Suzanne, correct? Or Sue Gillis, who is a longtime friend of mine as well. She's a longtime resident of Vermont. She moved here from Connecticut in 1973. She was a political science major, I believe at our university, the University of Vermont, where she got addicted to politics. And I bet you also she got addicted to women's issues as well. The reason we're honoring her tonight, for many reasons, just because she's a great friend. She's always in solidarity with other women. But also she's the publisher of Vermont Woman, which has been in existence since 1985, right? It's won many, many awards. It has always, always presented the voice of women and those who love women. And that includes, of course, a lot of men. And so she deserved this award because she has always brought the voice of women into our community. She's also commended them for all of their work and for their creativity. She's provided a real voice for women and it is the longest continuous woman's newspaper, I believe, in the country, right? Okay, so anyway. And also she and I shared office at one point and it was the most chaotic but way creative office that I've ever been in because of Sue. You know, I'm very moved by receiving this award. And thank the committee. Sandy, Lou, thank you so much. It's just very nice to be recognized. I really do appreciate it. And I'm glad that you mentioned Common Woman because Common Woman basically, I believe, stopped publishing in 1984 for Mount Woman, we started publishing for Mount Woman in 1985. And I just wanna say that the reason, there was an awful lot happening back then but one of the things that was really irking me was that every single institution, including newspapers and the media, were owned and run by men. And what really bugged me was that these newspapers were writing about women and about women, what women thought and they were being written by men. And I thought, well gee, women are different from men in many ways which is lovely and have their own opinions and their own way of thinking about many, many issues that don't necessarily coincide with those of men. Like war and babies, for instance, in healthcare, just to name a few. And also back in 1985, which is very hard for maybe most of us to remember, is that in Vermont, there was no newspaper at all owned or run or financed by women. So Vermont Woman was birthed during that particular period and also it was very uncommon for there to be women judges or women lawyers or women doctors or women carpenters or engineers. Now, all these years later, almost 35 years later, it's a different story, it's a different scene and we really and truly have come a long way in many, many areas. And here we are in 1918, 2018, 2018, and we have a Me Too movement and a Time Out movement. And the children at Parkland, Parkland, Florida coming forward and making their voices heard and known. I think something in the great march that women had last year and this year, really, I feel very optimistic that things are starting to change in those areas as well, sexual abuse, sexual assault, domestic violence, guns, assault weapons, and so forth. People are finding their voices. And maybe we should thank, this pains me to say this, this president of the United States, Donald Trump, who said the press is the enemy of the people. How dreadful, how very, very dreadful that the leader of our country would say such a thing when so many people died for that first amendment. So another word about Vermont Woman is that it takes a village to produce a newspaper. I'm standing up here, but I'm only the publisher. We've had wonderful editors for Vermont Woman over the years. Unfortunately, none of them are here tonight. Our current editor Kate lives in Montpelier and we're having a storm in case you haven't heard. And Ricky Garadiman, the founding editor of Vermont Woman back in 1985, is also from Montpelier. Wonderful, wonderful editors. And Margaret McNawettes, now lives in New York City. Jan Dolar, long time, well she's the founder of the current issue of Vermont Woman that was revised and completely done over in 19, in 2003. And Jan was the founding creative director and production director and is so today. So we have a lot of continuity over the years with staff. Ricky came back for another stint for three years as editor after Margaret left. And those things mean a lot, having staff. Our friend Judy here is sitting next to me. She was a very long time salesperson. And this is what was different about Vermont Woman. Vermont Woman from Common Woman in particular is that I wanted Vermont Woman to be, it had to be a business that would sustain a staff and so we can make a living, meager as it was. And in order to do that, we needed to be able to sell advertising. And in order to be able to sell advertising, you had to be able to throw some of the advertisers off their game because starting Vermont Woman in 1985 was just about a revolution because I wanted it to be a paper that reached out to a very broad segment of the community. I wanted to inspire and educate and I wanted to agitate and for principles that Vermont Woman was founded on of which some of those were pro-choice and good women's healthcare and many other principles, daycare for women and equal pay for equal work and so forth and so on. There was, they say nothing about sexual abuse and domestic violence and so forth. So we had a lot to talk about. So in order to have the paper to be sustain itself we needed to sell advertising and we needed to do this in a way and how we started out and I'll just leave you as one thought for the Vermont Woman of the 80s and is that we would run and we did this by design. We have one issue that would be a soft issue and the next issue would be a real hard hitter. For example, one issue would have Nancy laying on the cover, women in business. The next issue would be the politics of breast cancer. The next issue would be Vermont's favorite school teacher is a hugger and so forth. So it'd be one and then the next would be one on women in guns, for example, or women in AIDS. AIDS was becoming a full-blown problem during this particular period also and as you also might remember, we were not able to put the word breast in an editorial context in Vermont Woman without losing 25% of our advertising. So it was dicey to try to keep the whole thing going. Yeah, 1985, it was a different time. Oh, that word, never, ever, are you kidding? So I would, I guess, oh, I forgot, Jan, could you bring me up that piece that I wanna read? I hope you all know what Vermont Woman looks like, but this is it. I would like to read you something to end my little thank you speech here. Thank you very much. Robin mentioned that I wrote a publisher's message in the last issue of Vermont Woman on stilettos and what inspired that was Melania Trump wearing five-inch stilettos to get on the airplane at the White House to go to the Houston Flood Zone. And I thought, gee, I thought about all those great women, there's been many wonderful, high-achieving first ladies in the White House. And I was just appalled, so I wrote this whole thing about stilettos. And because Vermont Woman is the longest running women's advocacy newspaper now in the country, I got to thinking about why would that be? And the best that I can come up with is that Vermont is an extraordinary state, a wonderful state to have a newspaper like Vermont Woman that has been supported, not enough, but a lot, but through the years by advertisers, that we've had a great staff, that we've had women who have stepped up to the plate to help launch the paper and to help sustain it through the years, through donations. One of them is here tonight. Robin, thank you from the bottom of my heart. You were one of those women. And I think it speaks to the spirited, out loud, restless kind of woman there is in Vermont. We're an active bunch. And I think Vermont Woman speaks to that, speaks to the Vermont women, and our Vermont women writers are trying and I think have achieved writing a certain kind of editorial mix of articles and features in every single issue. And I can tell you that every single issue that comes out with Vermont Woman to this day excites me from an idea in a blank page to a 20 to 40 page newspaper. It feels just astonishing and amazing. And so I thank all of you sitting here and all Vermonters for having set the stage for me to create Vermont Woman and to keep it going for as long as I can. And hopefully I'll find a nice young feisty woman with passion and writing skills that would really love to take this on and keep it going because I think without it, you would lose that voice that Vermont Woman has in its own public forum or newspaper. And so I would like to end this after all my praise of Vermont Woman of Vermont and say, the real Vermont women wear stilettos. It was the shoes that made me do it. This is a little diddy that I wrote. It was the shoes that made me do it. September 1973, new in town, searching. Walked up Church Street for the first time. Some traffic, busy, bustling. Lunix was an A&W root beer joint. Fresh from Fairfield County, Connecticut, fresh from everything money, fresh from the hustle. From conspicuous consumerism, it was the 70s. Missing and searching for essential, for the essential essence of life, authenticity, connection, nature. Then I saw them, Birkenstocks. Hiking boots, lots of them. I looked up and then I saw the wearers, women. Spirited, strong, confident, open, alive. Men too, same shoes. Kind, gentler, gentle, interesting, compassionate. Struck me right in the heart. A pivotal, life-changing moment. Moved to Vermont, never looked back. It was all about the shoes, really. Thank you. Look what you're gonna get, Polly. So we hope the awardees will stick around afterwards so we can take lots of photographs. Next up. Our next honoree is going to be introduced by Alan Sklar. First of all, you are all amazing. I have to tell you, I was the holdout. I wanted to postpone tonight, cancel it. I will never be a real Vermonter. And then, because you're all here. And I apologize by emails to my fellow committee members. Today we are honoring Barbara Jordan who has contributed so much as an exercise trainer and wellness counselor for older adults. For more than 35 years, she's worked with seniors focusing on holistic approaches to wellness. Currently, she teaches classes at UVM and at the Miller Center in Burlington. Until recently, she also taught at the Winooski Senior Center and Wake Robin Retirement Community. And her following from each of these places is here tonight. In addition, she's a national senior Olympics medalist and has won numerous national championships in masters track and field. As Barbara was growing up in New Jersey, there were limited sports for girls because this was pre Title IX. And so sports were not mandated at all for girls. However, physical education was always her favorite class. Although in high school, there were no sports offered for girls, she was an active majeurette. Is that a sport? Not so much. She went on to Springfield College in Massachusetts where she got a degree in physical education and health, played a lot of intramural sports and was part of the gymnastics club and was president of the physical education majors club. She moved to Vermont in 1969 when Paul, her husband, accepted a job as physical education teacher and football coach at South Burlington High School. Soon after that, she was recruited to teach the newly formed South Burlington High School gymnastics team. Barbara coached the team to two state championships. In 1985, a classmate from Springfield College who was the track and field coach at UVM was working with a UVM physician on a research project entitled The Effective Training on Insulin Resistance of Aging. Barbara was asked to take over as the trainer coordinator of the study. At the end of the study, the participants didn't wanna stop their exercise programs. And that was the start of Barbara's fitness and aging class at UVM. Two of those students entered the first Vermont senior games and that introduced Barbara to a program that has been so important to her personally and professionally. She thought, when I get old, I wanna join them. Starting in 1987, she started training and has been with a Vermont senior game since then and is currently vice president of Vermont Senior Games Association and chairman of the games committee. In 1993, at Louisiana State University, she competed in her first national senior games, winning gold in the high jump. She was hooked. She's a senior Olympics medalist and has won numerous national championships in master's track and field. Since she was 65, she has held world records in the 300 meter hurdles, indoor pentathlon, four by 100 relay, and four by 400 relay. She held US records in the 60 meter and 80 meter hurdles and the 60 meter and 200 meter dashes. When she turned 80 in 2015, Barbara won the 50 meter and 100 meter dashes and was on the four by 100 relay team that broke the women's age 80 to 84 world record with the national senior games in Minneapolis. She's been inducted in six athletic halls of fame, including the USATF master, Springfield College, Fairlawn, New Jersey High School, and South Burlington High School, all their athletic halls of fame. These are obviously remarkable accomplishments and worthy of the recognition we're giving her tonight. But what has also drawn us to nominate and award Barbara is that what she has added to the lives of those who've been fortunate to be her students in the senior fitness classes. Barbara's commitment to her students and their health is never ending. She continually models the correct way to exercise so that her students will get as much from their physical activity as possible. She's always on the lookout for a better way to do an exercise and will alter a method she has used for a long time if she feels it will improve her students' performance. Recently, for example, we've gone to shake and wiggle as a way to include our lymph systems. Did you ever realize your lymph system needed exercise? This is... That just added to the list of organs and body parts that we activate. She assumes that all her students will participate to the best of their ability, and she thinks creatively about how they can get the most out of an exercise, whether it means using a chair rather than standing, using a pillow to alleviate neck problems, or needing help to utilize a particular exercise tool or implement. She incorporates all kinds of exercise into the class, stretching, Pilates, yoga, Tai Chi, to introduce as many approaches as possible to help students find a method that is comfortable for them. At all times, Barbara reminds us that our spirit, our mind, and our bodies are connected. Starting each class with a discussion of the word of the day, she reminds us that our focus on thinking and feeling are as much a part of our successful exercise as is the moving of body parts. The emphasis on the importance of spirit and attitude became most evident in 2013 when Barbara had two surgeries close together for breast and lung cancers. She maintained her exercise routine and inspired her students with her positive attitude about her health, her treatment, and her refusal to be discouraged by her new role as cancer patient. Barbara is always interested in the lives of her students and is supportive of those who are new to the class. She notes events happening in her students' lives and acknowledges their birthdays. She worries if a student is absent from class for more than a day or so. She encourages camaraderie among students and makes sure there is a positive feeling among the class as a whole. For those who've been involved in athletics during other times of their lives, they are in a class led by a super athlete. For the rest of us, we have found a place where we can be respected just for showing up and are encouraged to stretch ourselves to be as healthy as we can. Recently in our class at the Miller Center, Barbara has moved from introducing a word of the day to a saying of the day. These are words of wisdom from a variety of people from Einstein to Twain to ordinary citizens. Yesterday, she quoted an unknown source as saying, if you have passion, you have purpose. Barbara's passion certainly has led her to a purpose and has led her to encourage so many seniors, primarily women, to be stronger, healthier, and confident. I can tell you, frankly, that we are all, I think we all come to the class in part to be inspired twice a week. And I know from an email I received from her son that our family has absorbed this inspiration. Her three sons and eight children are continually inspired by her. So it's a great pleasure that we honor you tonight. Barbara Jordan. I thank you, Ellen. Namaste. That is a word that we use every day, meaning when you're in that place and you, and I'm in that place and me, the universe resides and we're one. And that's the essence of women and the role here that I see tonight as connections. And we mentioned spirit, mind, and body. And I think Paul is Betsy here. Dot. Okay, anybody else from Springfield College? Yes, I mean, I grew up on the campus. Oh, all right. I'm gonna leave there. What? My father graduated from Springfield. Great. And the logo, it's on my chest and a tattoo. Spirit, mind, and body. And I think we all have that perspective and that has carried me through all my teaching in wherever I go to see the whole person and everything. So tonight I honor you. Namaste, when you are in that place and you, and I'm in that place and me, there's just one of us. And that's an incredible thing. And I found that music somewhere, and it's a song called Namaste. And I took my Tai Chi class and made it fit into the music. So every morning when we start, we start with it at UVM and at Miller, they like to end with it. So, but we do that all the time and it's just a really great, a whole body experience. It's physical, it's mental, and it's spiritual. And so I am honored tonight and thankful for you, this committee, for honoring me and I honor all of you and Sue and Dottie, congratulations to you both too. As you said in the beginning, we have one spirit, one mind, and one body. And we have that physical, mental, and spiritual aspect. And as I see the evolution of people and mostly females, when we were younger, our bodies were the thing and our circumstances were everything. And as we grow older, we kind of, and I can talk from experience now, my physicalness is not as good as it was. I think I had to give up my competition after I set those records with Flo who's sitting over here now and she's kind of taken over. She's a year older than me, so she gets the records before I do now. And so my body is not as strong as it used to be, although I still work out and I still teach all my classes and I am so grateful for all of my students. I want you to just stand up, everybody here that's taking a class right now. Is that Lenny? Mackerel. Lenny, stand up. Stand up Lenny. Lenny was one of my first students when I started this program for the hospital. I used to go around to all the senior centers with an exercise program, teach him for 12 weeks, pre and post-test, and then Lenny was in the first class that I did out in Williston Woods. And this is fantastic. I am so grateful for all of you people that have come here tonight, this is wonderful. But Lenny is 103 years old and he's still doing my exercises. When I left a program, I would give them a tape, now Winooski, and there's a couple of Winooski people there too, that's great. Rita runs a great program and wave. Those are my Winooski people over there and they have a DVD that I left with them. And yeah. It's a birthday every year. And so when I left the place, I left them with my DVD or CD so that they keep on going. Wake Robin still uses theirs once a week on Saturdays and we just celebrated a birthday with Ruth Partridge. She was just a hundred years old and she's still doing the exercises. So that's an incredible thing that people really understand that the body was made to move and you need to move it. And so what a surprise Lenny, that's great. Thank you Abby for bringing him. That's wonderful. And my oldest in the Miller class is Dottie Carpenter and she's 91 and she still comes and exercises with us all the time. So it's really great. I just have so much fun with them and being with the senior games now, how I got there was these two people that were in the senior games were having so much fun that I decided I would join them. And it's been a great thing ever since because when I was young, the evolution of women, we just didn't do that. As you heard, I started out as a major rep and then I went through and Springfield College and learned all kinds of activities and all the different kinds of sports. And the thing that Title IX did was allow women to be able to do what men were doing. Otherwise we had to take a lower role out of there. And so the evolution and where it's going now is tremendous. I mean, women can do anything that men can do. And especially in the field of sports, you just look at the Yukon basketball team, Paul's favorite team. What they can do. I mean, the basketball games are just as great. In fact, we like them better than the men's. And so women have come a long way and it's such a great thing. So it's an honor to be a woman. And so I thank you all for acknowledging that. It's been a pleasure to be nominated. I thank the committee for honoring me. And it just makes connections. And I think that's the most important part. When we see each other and we honor each other, we know that we're this one body in this great world. Ellen mentioned a few little phrases that we taken. The latest one that I really like is, and I think that when people teach, when I taught in all my classes, I taught holistic health at the university and it was taking all the different pieces and putting them together into one whole. And one time I was teaching about I think metaphors and stories and little sayings really helped to learn. And that's the best way to teach. Sometimes you can't teach what actually is, but it could be like something else, like a metaphor. So my first experience with really understanding this wholeness was I used the iceberg as a metaphor that if you can visualize an iceberg floating in the water at Arctic and you see it, there's only a portion of it that sticks out. And the rest of it is floating in the water. And so I was explaining that to my students that this is the iceberg and we just see the tip of the iceberg and it's underneath the iceberg that makes up the iceberg and we're all like that. And so that you have water can be either liquid, gas or solid depending upon the temperature. And it's all energy and vibration. And so one chemistry student that was taking my class said, did you know that water is the only thing when it freezes, it floats? I said no, I didn't know that. And just sort of put it on the back burner. And on the way home from class that night, I got this great insight. You know how you get that aha moment sometimes? And it was like, wow, whatever created me supports me. And I don't ever have to worry about anything. And that was the greatest insight that I had about how the world works. And this little saying that we just said the other day was about a drop of water. And we're not a drop of water in the ocean, but we're the entire ocean in a single drop. And if you can remember that, that you're part of this great grand scheme of things. And we're all connected and we support each other and love each other. That's what it's all about. Whether you're doing something physical or something mental. And as I said before, my physicalness is kind of waning. My mind sometimes I forget a lot of stuff like names of people and things like that. But my spirit is getting stronger. And I think that that's what happens as you age, that you have this great spirit and it's really kind of fun. It is, I've had a couple of bouts of cancer and it's how you look at it. And you can either be grumpy or sad, that doesn't help your body. Or you can say it is what it is and you deal with it. So that's how I choose to live my life. And you mentioned being an inspiration. And I think that that's how people grow and learn is they're inspired. So how do you get inspired? And I think that one story that I really like, one of my favorite stories is a Sufi story about a person who was wondering what these people, three people were doing laying bricks. It's a story about these three masons. You may have heard of it. And he came up to the first person and said, what are you doing? And he said, I'm laying bricks. What the heck do you think I'm doing? And he went on to the next and he said, and what are you doing? He said, oh, I'm trying to make a living. I gotta keep my family healthy. He came up to the third person and he said, and what are you doing? He said, I'm building a cathedral. And so it's your attitude that determines your altitude and where you go and how far you go. How you see things. Okay, and I'm gonna leave you with one thing that inspired me. I get inspired by listening to some music and Karen Drucker was a person who wrote this song that's called The Power of Women. It's the power of women united we stand. We're making a difference when we join hands. It's the power of women who will heal the world. Every color, every race, through the ages it's been shown that women have compassion and show the way to a world filled with peace and love. And that's where I hope that we're all going. Thank you, Barbara. And thank you, Barbara, for bringing this huge audience. All right, our final awardee is going to be introduced by Molly Hooker-Hatfield. Hi, thanks for coming. I'm Molly Hooker-Hatfield. Mercy Connections executive director Dolly Fleming has over 40 years of executive experience within the nonprofit arena. Dolly served 12 years at the United Way of Chittenden County in multiple roles. She's been a consultant, trainer, advocate, and facilitator for nonprofits throughout New England. Dolly has served as executive director to such organizations as the Vermont Foundation for Children and Families, Mobius the Mentoring Movement, Community of Vermont Elders, Council on Aging, Institute for Program Development at Trinity College of Vermont, Learning Innovations of Vermont. Dolly loves poetry, reading, nature, family, and the privilege of being a steward of mission-driven organizations. She has a big, beautiful, and extended family and lives with her beloved partner, Francis, in Burlington. Of her career working with communities, organizations, and individuals, men, women, boys, and girls, Dolly says, I feel I have been called to help people rediscover their loveliness and potential as many have forgotten or never learned how truly wonder-filled they are or can become. It's my pleasure to introduce Dolly Fleming. So Barbara, I need to wiggle a little bit more at this point in my life, so I need to sign up for a class. And Gillis, Vermont has never been the same since you left Connecticut. Never. Comrade activist. And Robin, if you know of any worms, send them my way, because I need all the donations I can get for Mercy Connections. So. Thank you. I am usually the one bestowing honors upon others and not the recipient. So it's a little uncomfortable for me, but I was coached to be gracious tonight. So thank you, really, I'm touched. So in, I think it's the Masai tribe, this thing is a little bit in my way here. In the Masai tribe, when they greet one another, they don't say hello, how are you? And they say, how are the children? That's the first thing, how are the children? So let's play with that and apply it to International Women's Day and women here in Burlington, Vermont. So as I greet you, I would like to say, how are the young baby girls? How are the adolescent girls? How are the teenagers? How are the young adult women? The unemployed women? The women with addictions and trauma and mental illness. The women without hope. The women in the nursing homes. The women in the jail, 140 tonight, five miles from here. The women left out of the priesthood. The women at the food shelf. The girls in the streets, the caregivers, the women who are trafficked, our transgender sisters. How are the women? Regrettably, when we ask how are the women, our answers can be rather disturbing. There are so many problems. Sexism, misogyny, discrimination, gender bias, ageism, economic gap, unbelievable, trafficking. But like Rabbi Kushner, we can list a million litany of problems, but Rabbi says, what's even more problematic than all those things I listed, is the lack of will and conviction to do anything about it, to fall into a complacency of accepting. Well, that's how it is, you know, one step at a time. You know, we're always gonna have women who are trafficked. We're always gonna have women in a sub-quality nursing home, kind of accept it. But what Rabbi Kushner says is, what if we organize that compassion and generosity to make a difference? And the lack of will to do that is more problematic than all the litany of the challenges. Justice and change don't just happen. It is the result of constant collective hard work, not just random acts of kindness, but strategic acts of intervention, prevention, correction, systemic change. Vigilant advocacy, individual and organized, engaged and informed citizens who read Vermont Woman and keep our saws polished and informed, public structures and supports. I'm fortunate right now because I have the privilege at working at Mercy Connections, which might be considered one of those public structures. And it's all about empowering women, helping women discover their loveliness, their potential, their dignity, and to achieve greater degrees of self-sufficiency. And what a privilege it is to do that. What an honor. Founded by the Sisters of Mercy. Are there any Sisters of Mercy here tonight? Those feisty dames have done so many things in this state of Vermont. They're remarkable, remarkable. Talk about international women, just courageous with conviction and principle and action. And one of the founders said that proof of love is deed. And that's what the Sisters of Mercy do. It's transform their love into action. So at Mercy, we have the responsibility and the privilege of helping women who are in jail when they come out to try to stay out of jail. So it costs 45 to $80,000 a year to house a woman who's in jail. And it costs us less than $5,000 a year to help her stay in the community and reduce risk behavior. And we do that because women in the community come together and decide and choose to have a relationship, a mentoring relationship and help that woman. 98% of the women in jail are poor. Most are victims of trauma and abuse and addiction. Is jail the right place? Hell no. So we are a part of a movement to try to reduce incarceration and reduce jail as the strategy. Am I saying people are blameless? No, but the bandwidth of being able to make choices has been eroded. It's really difficult. So we work with these wonderful women who are coming out and reframing their lives and transforming their lives. We work with aspiring entrepreneurs. In 1989, the Women's Small Business Program was founded with CEDO and Trinity College and it still exists now. So we help women make informed decisions about owning and operating a business. We also work with women and men, but predominantly women who are poor and suffering the tyranny of poverty and how absolutely challenging that is. And we work with immigrants, new Americans. So that is the privilege that we have at Mercy Connections, empowering women. I'm gonna read, I like to take poems and then redo them in my way. So David White is one of my mentors, a poet and a writer, and he wrote a poem called What Interests Me? And I've played around with it and written my own version. And here's a mini part of it. It doesn't interest me if you're a Democrat, Republican, progressive or independent. It doesn't interest me if you have a college degree or many, a title, a portfolio or a trust fund. It doesn't even interest me if you're conservative or liberal. I wanna know if you care about the dignity of women, if your heart is awakened to the joys and sufferings of others. It doesn't interest me if you have a country club membership or a scheduled flight to the Bahamas. I wanna know if you care that our jails are overpopulated, that women have food for their families, a legitimate seat at the policy table, a decent way to get to work on a cold winter's day. I wanna know if you're prepared to work in the world, to change the harsh edges for those living in the margins. If you're willing to live and advocate day by day with the uncertainty of victory, but the sure conviction of cause. I want you to know as we continually discover that the present system is irreconcilable with our vision that you will stand up with a lamp and that our sights will not be diminished to fit the status quo. I wanna know that we will all band together and that banding together and standing together is more important than branding and divisiveness. I wanna know if you're willing and prepared, when you think we're all too timid that you encourage us to be bold. And when you think we are too fierce that your counsel softens never our sense of justice, but our self-righteousness. I wanna know if you care about our sisters. So there's a little poem that I often say at our Mercy Connections graduations when people are trying to discover their loveliness and their confidence. And Hafiz says, how did the rose ever open its heart and give to this world all its beauty? How did the rose ever open its heart and give to the world all its beauty? It felt the encouragement of light against its being. Otherwise we all become too afraid. The encouragement of light against its being. What if we as women and allies let our light shine and encourage others so they can blossom? Eleanor Porter says, reminded me that the presence of a hopeful, beautiful character can be contagious and revolutionize a whole town. Well, I say, let us be the light against each other's being and viva la revolution. Thank you, Dolly. I'm gonna keep this lower now. Okay, we're gonna pay a brief tribute to, in absentia, to Tarana Burke. She is the originator of the Me Too movement. And we have a little video that we're gonna show you with Jeff's help after a little introduction by me. Tarana Burke is a social activist and the original creator of the Me Too movement. Ms. Burke is also a single mom who grew up reading Toni Morrison novels and other black feminist authors. When Burke was 14, she joined the 21st century youth leadership movement, which trained young people to be grassroots community organizers. Her first project was in 1989, organizing against Donald Trump, who was taking out full page ads in New York City, calling for the death penalty for the Central Park Five, a case of five teenagers wrongfully convicted of rape who spent time in jail until a serial rapist confessed to the crime. In 2003, she co-founded Just Be, Inc., a nonprofit organization focused on the health, well-being, and wholeness of young women of color. Tarana Burke came up with the phrase Me Too in 2006, while working with young women at Just Be, Inc. as a way to respond to the experiences they shared with her. They all shared the same experiences, Me Too. Tarana Burke is currently senior director of the nonprofit Girls for Gender Equity in Brooklyn, New York. In December, Times Magazine included her as one of the silence breakers named 2017% of the year. While using her new media platform to promote the Me Too movement, Tarana Burke is also working on expanding the Me Too website into a comprehensive resource tool for survivors. Here's a short clip, yeah. Speaking of her, speaking about her work. Thousands of women are using two words on social media to identify themselves as survivors of sexual harassment and assault today. What happened to Me Too? Me Too, it happened to Me Too. In less than 24 hours, there have been over 12 million Me Too posts on Facebook and 650,000 tweets on Twitter. I have been organizing since I was 14 years old. I've like, just been sensing around social justice work. And I have for the last probably 15 years been really focused on women and girls of color. But during that work is when we realized that the girls that we were working with were encountering sexual violence in various ways. I met a young girl and I was pretty young myself. She was probably 12, 13. She came to me and shared her history with sexual violence and the things that happened to her. It was the thing that was repeated. I was repeating in my head that she was telling a story like Me Too. And I know what it felt like. The magnitude of what she was saying felt similar to my life. I was just scared. I was pointing to, I didn't even know, I ended up sending her to another counselor who I thought could handle what she had to say better and would get her some services and figure out how to get her out of the home or whatever, but I didn't tell her anything. And I have over the years written her letters in my mind. I don't know if I've ever sent them, but just apologizing because it just feels like the worst thing you can do is I'm like, he was committed to being people. My partner and I decided we have to take a step back. We have to figure out what to do. We were both survivors. So Me Too came from this idea that we have to do this ground work first. So we started doing the work, we used to do workshops where other people would let us, you know, libraries and churches, schools, empowerment and empathy is the way that we describe the work around Me Too because it really is an exchange of empathy between survivors. I think when I became a mother and have a daughter, it really set with me that I wanted my daughter to live in a world that saw her, that recognized her and acknowledged her power. And a lot of the work I'm doing in this world is that if they have the kind of work I want them to live in, you could say you're not alone, you're not alone, you're not alone as much as you want. So the empirical data that we have generated from this movement is just forever existing. And that's my question is just because of the narratives you can reveal, this is not about predators, this is not about individual people, it's about the system. If we keep dealing with the individual people who pop up, it's like playing a lack of holes, right? It really is after a while, it's just like, oh look at this one, and then that one, and then we're always surprised, oh my God, I can't believe this beloved person. It's like, there are systems in place that allow sexual violence to flourish. And if we don't change our conversation to talk about patriarchy and privilege, we will have the one conversation. We're so grateful for Tarana Burke and her courage, initiative, and leadership. And we thank her in absentia, we're gonna send her a nice certificate like the rest of our awardees. She's obviously very busy right now and couldn't attend our event. Yeah, we did invite her, but she was not able to make it. I think empowerment with empathy, I think a great thought for us to hold on to there. So, just wanted to ask if there are people in the audience who might like, we do have a couple of mics that we can pass around. If anyone has something to say about how the Me Too movement has affected you. I'm glad you honored Tarana Burke and I would also like to remind people that the phrase sexual harassment didn't exist until the early 70s when the feminist movement, people like Catherine McKinnon and others did that work. And it obviously took only 50 years for that to sort of reach a more general consciousness, but I just don't want us to forget that it started back there, you know. And this is how long it took and this is. And I'm really glad that it's getting the attention it needed all these years and we should also watch out for the backlash. Yeah, thank you. Anyone else? Okay, we also have a woman who's come up and said she has a poem that she would like to read. Barbara, are you out there somewhere? We're a little ahead of schedule, but we don't have a ton of time, but Barbara after you speak, I'll wrap it up. I'm very happy to be here. I don't live in Burlington. I live in Corinth, Vermont, and spent a great deal of my adult life in Europe. I worked in the field of human rights and reconstruction after war in Bosnia for many years. I've worked on different projects with the Women's World to Summit Foundation. And I'm completing now a book of portraits and reflections after war called Sarajevo Winter. It's a big deal work, very intimate work, and it examines all, not all, but many of the challenges of life after war and during war, including trafficking, rape camps, but also about cultural disintegration, about finding bones in the forest after war. All the many things we don't think about when we think about war, but right now I'm busily and quietly riding in Corinth. And a few weeks ago, I opened up a book of poems I wrote actually maybe 20 years ago, and they're all called She-Poems, dedicated to all the she's all over the world on various elements of being a woman. So I thought I would like to just share this one with you. She has tried to be more than she is, standing taller, straighter, puffing out her chest like some kind of rooster, keeping authors, oh, it's the wrong poem. I did this a few weeks ago, okay. Up here at a poetry, at a theater event that was women in theater I think all around the world and that was, okay, no, here we go. She has tried, I have to say she really has tried and integrated many parts of herself, but now this is maybe before she has tried, but she would like to try. She does not know. She does not know how she is like water, like silk, like the earth opening at her depths and mystery not to be solved or disturbed. She does not know because she is an ordinary woman leading an ordinary life with an extraordinary mind and she has not been able to match the two. She does not know because she does not have a full length mirror reflecting on all sides like a many petaled lotus, the kind of deceptive mirrors and soft lights you find in Bendels in New York or Harrods in London where women, fat or thin, look more beautiful at that moment, more exquisite than at any other time, though you know it is a lie, because we are congratulated for what we are not rather than for what we are even though we are now told otherwise. She does not know her own beauty because she does not have a scalpel to dissect her mind, which is so lush that it requires a machete to forge a path through the rainforest and a map to the cheetahs and startling orchids dwelling there. Nor does she have a kaleidoscope to appreciate the angles of changing perception, mutating in a dance, melody, rhythm, truth, fear, courage entangled in robust vines. May the variations on the theme never end and always contradict in unexpected ways. She does not know because like most of us, she cannot feel it in her skin and the animal of her and the coursing of her blood behind her eyes or in her belly where dignity is felt or in her heart, craving love that can accept the fullness of her, the indecision of her, the desperation, the pleasure, a wild solitary journey unique and yet the same for all of us. She does not know because she still thinks she should be not who she is, but someone else, someone more intelligent, more fertile, more luscious, more independent, wealthier, smoother, so much kinder and so much more. She feels deficient as she turns the pages of magazines or sits in the cinema looking at women, most of whom have eagerly sacrificed themselves to the gods, animals in a slaughter to be what they are not and never will be, but the illusion is effective and in the end creates a massive freeze of the spirit. I have seen this woman now working for years to come into herself like lambs coming into the gate, like the brook feeding the pond, like the slow siding of an expansive field, bringing it in before the rain rots the hay. I have seen her all these years in such discomfort, a jagged rock rubbing away tender skin, screaming from hunger, some hungry desolate place so that she screams even when she speaks gently and I know the burden of not having been heard, of not having been held in the whole of her, not quite like she knows it, but I have walked so close and I can say she has worked hard, worked well and just now the signs are showing, the moon is waxing, the buds are insisting and I know, I know she is traveling from a long winter into the first days of spring. Thank you for sharing that. So, in closing, I just wanted to say I'm very encouraged by the Me Too movement. I think it's really struck a little spark in all of us to move forward and I know the women of this community will do just that. So, as we close, please remember our tip jars which are over there, our donation jars on the food tables if you'd like to contribute to keeping this event going each year, we would really appreciate it and it's our hope that today's stories leave you feeling inspired and that each story strengthens and enriches us all. We're sisters, we are strong community and we stand up for each other. Thank you so much for coming.