Dear FAV Community,
In honor of Black History Month, I thought it would be appropriate for FAV to emphasize the impact of African American leaders. They represent one third of our Board of Directors, Advisory Council members, Symposium speakers and many of our audiences. FAV strives for diversity in all of its aspects and mirrors our country’s founding motto, E Pluribus Unum, “out of many, one.” To quote Alan Inman on our board of directors, “People need to see themselves in the picture.” Thus, we work hard to ensure that African Americans lead our organization, speak during our programs, and feel welcome at FAV hosted events. We value the struggles and sacrifices made by the African American community in the United States and lock arms with our brothers and sisters to strive for the aspirational goals in our founding documents, that all men (and women) are created equal.
We have a lot going on this month! Don’t wait until March 1st to nominate a community leader for the Lowry Award. Learn more at our website quicklink and inspire others to live up to the values of selfless community service, being willing to work across partisan divides, encouraging volunteerism, and other leadership traits. Learn more by watch this short Lowry Award video or going to our website.
Last month, we congratulated our amazing volunteers during our annual Volunteer Recognition Ceremony. Congratulations to Tyler Boden, Volunteer of the Year, Aaron Johnson, Runner-up, and Kelly Kehoe, Honorable Mention. These amazing volunteers selflessly contributed hours and hours to ensuring that FAV content & programming delivered the same high quality you have come to expect. They represent the dozens of volunteers who helped make our programs, Symposium, and campaigns successful during the year. We couldn’t do it without them and greatly value their contributions. Read more from this San Clemente Times story.
Subscribe to FAV YouTube channel
Have you enjoyed watching some of our programs on video? Maybe you wanted to attend our recent Digital Detox program, but the timing didn’t work? Check out the FAV YouTube channel and hit subscribe to stay up-to-date on all of our programs. Every fifth (public) subscriber gets a free FAV T-shirt! (Hint: get four of your family or friends to subscribe and guarantee you get a free T-shirt!) Don’t forget to click the thumbs up icon if you like any of our videos.
Membership Corner
Have you recently joined FAV as a member? Don’t forget all of the great benefits of membership: free attendance at coffee talks and workshops throughout the year, discounted attendance during the annual Symposium, quarterly member updates where you learn about new FAV programs, recognition, and get to ask questions, and much more. Sustaining members ($500 and up) get VIP passes during the Symposium in addition to learning about the impact of their donations, allowing us to produce products like the recent white paper on polarization in the U.S. Learn more at https://firstamendmentvoice.org/join/
FAV bids farewell to Alyx Wells, our membership coordinator. Many of you may have spoken to Alyx on the phone about your membership benefits or upcoming programming. She moves on to a sister nonprofit and will benefit them in amazing ways! We are equally excited to welcome Sydney Lantz. Sydney joins to enhance member benefits and value. Look to hear from her around the time your member renewal is due or to learn about new programming. Reach out at [email protected] to ask her a question.
Partner Spotlight
The 20th anniversary of religious freedom in faith-based and government partnerships, an essential cornerstone to advancing religious freedom for BOTH religious organizations and individuals receiving social services funded by the government. If you are interested in running it on First Amendment Voice, let me know: https://irfalliance.org/happy-20th-birthday-to-the-faith-based-initiative/
