Peace Starts Here: Agape Foundation Awards Prize to Northern California Peacemakers

Press Alert
For Immediate Release
Monday, Sept. 10, 2007
Contact: Karen Topakian, 415/701-8707, karen@agapefdn.org

Peace Starts Here:
Agape Foundation Awards Prize to Northern California Peacemakers
When: September 20, 7:00 p.m.
Where: Gallery One in One Embarcadero Center, San Francisco

San Francisco, CA: The Agape Foundation Fund for Nonviolent Change honors two leading peacemakers at its third annual Peace Prize ceremony on September 20th, the eve of the UN-declared International Day Of Peace, at 7 p.m., Gallery One, One Embarcadero Center, San Francisco.

Agape is an innovative social justice grantmaker that provides grants, loans and emergency funding to small and nascent social justice organizations in California. Since its formation in 1969, Agape has been an early funder of hundreds of transformative organizations including Amnesty International and the United Farm Workers.

“From small beginnings can come lasting peace,” said Agape’s Executive Director Karen Topakian. “Tonight’s honorees work on diverse causes, from peace in San Francisco’s Mission district and the prison yard, to peace in the Middle East, but they share the same courage and commitment to social change. In their work, we see the cumulative impact of individual decisions to prioritize peace.”

The Enduring Visionary Prize, formerly the Long Haul Prize, honors a Northern California individual or organization that has made a sustained effort to create peace in their community, nationally, or internationally. The 2007 winner is Homies Organizing the Mission to Empower Youth (HOMEY), which works with youth on both sides of the Mission’s gang conflict to mend the rift and reduce violence.

The Rising Peacemaker Prize, the winner of which to be announced at the ceremony, recognizes a new Northern California peacemaker that has made a critical difference towards progressive change within the last five years. Nominees include Pablo Paredes, a court-martialed war resistor who now helps young people reject military recruitment; Roni Krouzman, founder of Next Generation, which inspires children as young as elementary school to work against the root causes of war; and Beth Waitkus, founder of the Insight Garden Program at San Quentin, providing life skills and an understanding of community ecology to inmates at San Quentin Prison.

The Agape Foundation has awarded more than $12 million in grants and loans to more than 700 grassroots organizations. Unlike many non-profits, Agape does not solicit corporate or government grants. Agape raises its money from individual donors with average gifts of only sixty dollars.

“Our nominees show us that peace can germinate anywhere,” said Topakian. “It can start in a prison yard, a schoolyard, on our city’s streets or thousands of miles away. And Agape seeds peace by providing funding and support for budding visionary peacemakers.”

Past winners of the Agape Peace Prize include Elizabeth Stinson, director of the Peace and Justice Center of Sonoma County; Banafsheh Akhlaghi, founder of the National Legal Sanctuary for Community Advancement (NLSCA), a leading voice in protecting the rights and dignity of people of Middle Eastern descent; the Mosaic Project, helping elementary-school children to resolve conflicts; and Capacitar International, teaching wellness practices to communities affected by violence.

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