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Category: Events

What Happened Around the Advoz Table this Year?

Even if you weren’t around the Advoz table last week, I thought you might want to know how memorable it was for so many of us.

Whether it was folks who experienced Advoz dialogue, committed volunteers, dedicated sponsors or curious newcomers on April 30th, the atmosphere was celebratory as you’ll see, thanks to photographer Andrea Faus. Check out some photos below and at @AdvozLancaster.

So how generous were we around the Advoz table? See below…and contribute to that table tally here.

We Raised…. $59,400!


Romeero, an impressive young man who was part of Advoz’s restorative victim-offender conferencing discussed his experience with Advoz, restorative justice and his dreams for the future.

The winning entries from our Art Contest displayed their work. The students from diverse backgrounds in School District of Lancaster expressed “how does peace look in your community” in their works

Last year’s Dignity in Dialogue awardee Dr. Amanda Kemp honored this year’s recipient, local artist and social justice advocate Salina Almanzar, who spoke about the challenges and opportunities of dialogue as a Latina artist.

Bidders had friendly competition over 80 items, from baseball tickets and jewelry, to art and handmade goods. 

The talented auctioneers from HK Keller rallied the crowd and inspired the audience to raise bid generously.

Laughter, friendship, support… all creating peace in our community. That’s what Around the Table is about. And we hope you can join us next year!

So what’s next? We have three opportunities to learn more and join Advoz’s work as a volunteer creating peace. Check out and consider signing up for:

Advoz’s work continues. And I hope you can continue to be a part of it.

With so many thanks to the leadership and sponsorship of…

The Hess Agency
High Companies
Sharp Shopper Grocery Outlet 
Weaver and Associates
Bertz, Hess, and Co., LLP
Mennonite Central Committee
Sentinel Management Services
Elizabethtown College Ctr. for Global Understanding & Peacemaking
EMU Lancaster MAED
Bomberger’s Store
John and Susan Simkins
Goodville Mutual
PNC Bank

Vicki Carskadon
Lancaster County Financial Group, LLC 
Saundra Hoover
John Eby
Esbenshades Greenhouses
Oregon Dairy
Executive Image Solutions
Lancaster County Youth Aid Panels
Ray and Lynette Huber

This is how we rolled Around the Table

We are still savoring the inspiration and generosity that flowed from Around the Table, our annual event on April 19. So I wanted to share a few nuggets of inspiration with you…including a hint of the positive feedback that we heard (so far) with the “word cloud” above. If you were there, you can still add your voice to feedback on the event.

The 2018 Around the Table selfie

Our community’s peacemakers — the official 2018 Around the Table selfie with MCs Brock Miller and Chris Boyd (left), Advoz executive director of community engagement, Chris Fitz (front left), Advoz executive director of program operations, Mila Pilz (back right), Dignity in Dialogue Awardee Amanda Kemp (center) and special guest Janet Connors (right).

Together, speakers and guests brought a down-to-earth message of hard-won dignity, challenging dialogue and grace-filled change around our tables. Some highlights included:

  • The clear innocent voices of singing children from SWAN4Kids.
  • The bare honesty of Amanda Kemp’s silent pause in the interview conversation with Scott LaMar,
  • The painful and forgiving experience of Janet Connor’s restorative work, having “power-WITH” youth, even in grief,
  • The enthusiasm of teacher Rob Fennimore using Advoz and restorative practices in his own teaching,
  • The generosity coaxing by Tim Keller and his auction team as they energized the crowd both on Advoz’s mission and support,
  • The honored leadership of outgoing board president, Miles Yoder, as he passed the “talking stick”-baton to incoming president, Lucille Connors,
  • The enthusiastic bidding and involvement of the audience throughout the evening.

Here are a few snips from the evening…

So the fundraising results are in, and 2018 will go down as one of Advoz’s most generous evenings yet. The gathered audience contributed nearly twice as much per person that night as in prior years, netting more than $24,000 toward Advoz’s work this year.

You can see and share some beautiful event photos on Facebook and below. And while you’re there, be sure to “like” Advoz on Facebook or follow on Twitter @advozpa.

And please be sure to thank the many companies (below) that led this event from its inception. We look forward to inviting you again in 2019 around the table as we continue to “walk the talk” in our thriving, striving, peaceable community.

With gratitude for our 2018 Around the Table Sponsors, Supporters and Bidders, and to so many others who furthered Advoz’s reconciling work Around the Table in 2018.

Chris Fitz, Mila Pilz and the 2018 Around the Table Team

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Amanda Kemp to Accept Dignity in Dialogue Award on April 19

Scholar, teacher, poet, playwright, performer, activist, author, workshop facilitator: Dr. Amanda Kemp has carved a creative and courageous path of conversation-making, much of it right here in Lancaster County. Dr. Kemp has been nominated for Advoz’s 2018 Dignity in Dialogue Award for her unshrinking work in cross-community conversations and an empathetic orientation to challenging conversations around racism and race relations that she has exemplified for years in the Lancaster County community and beyond.

Dr. Amanda Kemp’s work and life blends activism and spirituality, theatre arts and history. Most recently, she authored the book, Say the Wrong Thing, a heart-centered, forgiveness-focused approach to engaging in hard conversations, especially those around race and racism.

A survivor of the New York City foster care system, Dr. Kemp has been a lifelong poet-performer and advocate of racial justice and equality since her first anti-apartheid march in 1983.  She earned her B.A. from Stanford University where she helped to lead the Stanford out of South Africa divestment movement and the successful struggle to revamp the University’s Eurocentric humanities requirement. Kemp went on to complete doctoral work in Performance Studies at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL, with an active role in the end of South Africa’s Apartheid era.

A master teacher, Dr. Kemp has taught at Cornell University, Dickinson College, Millersville University, and Franklin & Marshall College where she served as the chair of Africana Studies. She has keynoted Martin Luther King programs at colleges, high schools, and in elementary school settings.  Kemp is currently a Visiting Scholar in Africana Studies at Franklin & Marshall College and continues to publish on race, performance and freedom.

See more about this amazing leader in “dignity in dialogue” right here in our community at:

https://www.dramandakemp.com/about/meet-dr-kemp/

Join us to congratulate Dr. Amanda Kemp as she receives Advoz’s Dignity in Dialogue Award and facilitates the keynote conversation with special guest Janet Connors at Around the Table, the Advoz annual dinner, April 19th, at the Eden Resort. Tickets at AroundtheTable.org.

 

Last Call to Circle Up Film Screening – March 22

A few seats remain for tomorrow’s Circle Up movie screening at Penn Cinema, 7 pm, Thursday, March 22, 2018.

The film follows Janet Connors and another mother, Clarissa Turner (pictured in the screenshot below, right to left)  as they reach out to those who killed their sons with hope for forgiveness…and the community change they create together to break the cycles of violence and revenge. Join us for an evening to learn and gain inspiration for what’s possible beyond the everyday story of “violence and youth.”

If you still want to see the film on Thursday, March 22, just show up at 6:50 pm to the event at Penn Cinema and pay at the door. $12 per seat. We look forward to continuing conversations around this powerful film…and look forward to welcoming Janet Connors to our annual dinner, Around the Table, April 19th at the Eden Resort. See: www.AroundtheTable.org.

With gratitude for sponsorship by:

Around the Table with Arun Gandhi – You Made It Possible

With a merger to celebrate, Advoz’s newly formed joint-event team knew it would be a big year. But when the dust settled on the record May 4th event, all were amazed by the turnout of 525 attendees, 128 auction donations and 43 generous sponsors to celebrate the merger of the Center for Community Peacemaking and Conflict Resolution Services.

With more than 150 guests experiencing Advoz for the first time, there was an opportunity for everyone to “add voice” on the theme, Peace: The Next Generation with “table-talk” conversations (below) whose results were texted message to the MCs and highlighted, adding voices to the evening dialogue.

 

Table Talk with the Coutts family

Sponsors, bidders and donors all contributed to the final tally, raising $72,681, with proceeds benefiting Advoz mediation and restorative justice programs this summer.

43 businesses, organizations and patrons contributed to more than half of the cost of the event. Please take a moment to thank them when you see them in our community!

 

Thank you PNC Bank, our Dinner Dialogue Sponsor and Community Sponsors Benjamin Roberts and Gibbel Kraybill and Hess

Thank you PNC Bank, our Dinner Dialogue Sponsor and Community Sponsors Benjamin Roberts and Gibbel Kraybill and Hess

Community Sponsors included Goods Disposal Service, Re-Uzit Shop of New Holland, Significa Benefit Services and Shumaker Plan-Design-Transform all made major contributions

Goods Disposal Service, Re-Uzit Shop of New Holland, Significa Benefit Services and Shumaker Plan-Design-Transform all made major contributions as Community Sponsors.

Thanks to Dale and Sadie High, HON Office Furniture, Landis Communities, Natural Awakenings, Shady Maple Smorgasbord and Sharp Shopper for your generous Restorative Sponsorship.

Thanks to Dale and Sadie High, HON Office Furniture, Landis Communities, Natural Awakenings, Shady Maple Smorgasbord and Sharp Shopper for your generous Restorative Sponsorship.

Advocate Sponsors included Barley Snyder, Bertz, Hess and Co. LLP, John W. Eby, Elizabethtown Center for Global Understanding and Peacemaking, Eastern Mennonite University Lancaster, Ephrata National Bank, EVERENCE Federal Credit Union, The Hess Agency, Lancaster Interchurch Peace Witness, Lancaster Life Employment Skills, Mennonite Central Committee, Moravian Manor, Ross Insurance Agency, Russel, Krafft and Gruber LLP, David and Heather Sperrry, Miles and Dawnell Yoder, and Zaepfel Law PC

Advocate Sponsors included Barley Snyder, Bertz, Hess and Co. LLP, John W. Eby, Elizabethtown Center for Global Understanding and Peacemaking, Eastern Mennonite University Lancaster, Ephrata National Bank, EVERENCE Federal Credit Union, The Hess Agency, Lancaster Interchurch Peace Witness, Lancaster Life Employment Skills, Mennonite Central Committee, Moravian Manor, Ross Insurance Agency, Russel, Krafft and Gruber LLP, David and Heather Sperrry, Miles and Dawnell Yoder, and Zaepfel Law PC. THANK YOU!

And a big thanks to Facilitator and Patron Sponsors: Allegra Marketing | Print | Mail, Ana Ayala and Oscar Barbosa, Chris and Tabea Steinbeisser-Fitz, Compass Real Estate LLC, Gift CPA, Edward and Twila Miller, Oregon Dairy, PA Council of Mediators, Mila Pilz and Hazem Salem, Taylor Brand Group, Travel Time, Trout Ebersole and Groft.

And a big thanks to Facilitator and Patron Sponsors: Allegra Marketing | Print | Mail, Ana Ayala and Oscar Barbosa, Chris and Tabea Steinbeisser-Fitz, Compass Real Estate LLC, Gift CPA, Edward and Twila Miller, Oregon Dairy, PA Council of Mediators, Mila Pilz and Hazem Salem, Taylor Brand Group, Travel Time, Trout Ebersole and Groft.

 

The evening would not have been possible without the generous work by these key volunteers and partners donating their time and talents:

Meek Daye, chair
Susan Eberly and Alegre Concierge Services

Ana Ayala
Shaun Balani
Robin Baldwin
Rob Bomberger
Steve Bortner
Corey Faus
Chris Fitz
Jennifer Gallagher
Claudia Himes
Steve Kownacki, video
Mila Pilz
Rod Shumaker, staging
Dawnell Yoder

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