Women’s Equality Day Reformed 6th Annual Ceremony
12 Noon, Friday, August 10, 2007
Welcome by Linda Levirne:
Good Afternoon and welcome all to this new annual celebration of
women and women’s voting rights. On behalf of this year’s Women’s
Equality Day Reformed Committee, thank you for taking time from
your busy schedules to be with us. Our theme this year is
Women Helping Women.
We thank the Honorable Gordon A. Burrows of the County Board of
Legislators whose sponsorship again this year has allowed us this space
under equal access and free speech. You loved last year’s program, and
we promise another wonderful day for you and all our guests.
Now I would like to introduce the Rev. Yolanda Jones of the
Christ Prayer Warriors Outreach Ministry in Peekskill who will give
the Invocation….
Thank you, Rev. Jones for your beautiful words. I am happy to introduce
Regina Riely of the WEDR Committee who will now lead us in the
Pledge and Anthem.
(Regina leads)
Please stand for our Pledge and Anthem.
Acknowledgments by Regina Riely:
As Linda mentioned, our theme today is Women Helping Women. The
87th anniversary of the 19th Amendment exemplifies the historic good
that came from a small gathering of women in search of equality as
citizens. On August 26, 1920 all women were granted the right to
vote. This 6th annual ceremony by our Reformed Committee happily
celebrates with women of all voting persuasions. As mentioned in our
Mission Statement on the back of your program, we now recognize an
equally deserving group of women who vote their conscience.
Women Helping Women role models are everywhere. They include our
previous honorees and recipients of the Mott, Stanton, Anthony award
who qualify each in their own unique way:
Mildred Fay Jefferson, M.D.,
Lisa Marrero, M.D.,
Dorothea Muccigrosso, (here today – please stand - applause)
The Domincan Sisters of Hawthorne at Rosary Hill Home, and
Christine Mortell-Plazas (also here! – please stand – applause)
Let’s, for a minute, go back in time – history is a great teacher.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, the most well-known
suffragettes, led the official movement for equality at the ballot box.
They also ushered in a newly political way of women helping women…
as well as encouraging men to help women and to see them in a new
light. It was, after all, men who voted - finally convinced of the
rightness of women’s call for equal rights as citizens. From the
beginning it was not a battle to usurp men’s roles or burdens, but to
share them. These women were ridiculed, to be sure, but their burning
desire for change and a sense of the rightness of their cause finally
brought women into the official decision-making process in America.
The personal associations of women often mean working together for
worthy causes. In the mid-19th century this meant working to end slavery.
Remember, women had no rights of their own, but their concern for the
human dignity of others drew them into the abolitionist and temperance
movements of the day. Sadly for both, the treatment of slaves and the
treatment of women had correlations.
In 1840 Lucretia Mott, Quaker and Temperance worker, met Elizabeth
Cady Stanton at the World Anti-slavery Convention in London. Denied
a seat at the convention, as were all women delegates, Mott discussed
with Elizabeth the need for a convention on women’s rights. The
feminist movement had begun.
Eight years later in 1848 in Seneca Falls, NY, Stanton, Mott,
Jane Hunt and others planned the first women’s rights convention, and
Stanton’s role as leader blossomed. Then in 1851 Elizabeth first heard
and met Susan B. Anthony at another anti-slavery meeting in Seneca Falls.
A life-long friendship grew from this meeting and together – with
different tasks in the movement – they helped lay the foundation for
women’s greater participation in society, the home, and the workplace
under the banner of equal voting rights.
We know today’s program will enlighten us all through the words and
experiences of our 2007 Honoree, and of our guest speaker on scientific
research being collected on the many uses of newborn cord blood.
WEDR ’07 – Nora Kelly Introduction
We introduce “Women Helping Women” perfectly with our keynote speaker from Cord Blood Registry, a young, dynamic business professional known for her communication abilities - skills that will be tested today. Think of the issue before us: stem cells and the expanding therapeutic use and banking of umbilical cord blood.
Nora Kelly received her Bachelor of Science in Biology in 2003 from James Madison University in Harrisonburg, VA where she was a dean’s list student and where her pre-med studies included human genetics.
She earned her Masters in Business Administration from Brandeis where she focused on healthcare management and health policy.
Her business career has included work as a data analyst, a group and health care analyst, and an internship as a finance and marketing strategist.
A recent health care representative for Pfizer, Inc., her training included managed care as well as sales, product and disease training. She is now Regional Manager for White Plains with
Cord Blood Registry.
Today’s women agree knowledge is key to making informed choices. Adult stem cells and umbilical cord blood banking and treatments are ethical, promising fields that deserve our attention. We are pleased to welcome the young woman who will enlighten us…
Nora Kelly…
WEDR ’07 - Intro to Honoree - Gabrielle Long Wright, CNM
Born in St. Agnes Hospital right here in White Plains, our 2007 honoree received her Bachelor of Fine Arts, Magna cum laude, from Northern Illinois University in 1979. As a candidate for Master of Fine Arts in Ceramics, she was a graduate teaching assistant at Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge.
In 1987 she returned to studies at Lehman College in the Bronx, receiving a Bachelor of Science in Nursing, Magna cum laude, in 1991. Six years later she completed her certification as nurse-midwife at SUNY Health & Science Center in Brooklyn.
Beginning her career as an OB-GYN staff nurse at New Rochelle Hospital, she worked at St. Agnes, Hudson Valley Hospital Center, and then as clinical instructor at Columbia University School of Nursing where she oversaw rotations at Mt. Sinai & Lawrence Hospitals. Her present position at Mercy Obstetrics & Gynecology and Our Lady of Mercy Medical Center utilizes the full scope of her nurse-midwife talents, as did her work at St. Agnes and Greenburgh Health Center.
She is a popular seminar speaker and has published articles and reviews. She has held leadership positions in professional associations including the American College of Nurse-Midwives, the Westchester/Putnam/Rockland Lactation Consortium, and the NYS Department of Health’s Breastfeeding Advisory Council. She has a 20-year relationship with LaLeche League International, most recently as Professional Liaison Leader. She is also a member of Hudson Valley Birth Network, Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing, and the American Academy of Fertility Care Practitioners. She teaches the Creighton Model Fertility Care System, and is a parish representative at the No. Westchester & Putnam Pro-life Vicariate.
Academic achievements and professional credentials, however, cannot begin to define her. She is a strong, dedicated, and compassionate voice to women and for women, whose personal story and presence in the lives of others epitomizes this year’s Women’s Equality Day theme - “Women Helping Women”. Ladies and Gentlemen, our 2007 recipient of the Mott-Stanton-Anthony award…Gabrielle Long Wright.
Presentation by Gabrielle Long Wright, CNM:
I consider myself the least likely candidate for this award, and I had to be dragged kicking and screaming to accept it. I have what used to be called a checkered background. After 8 years of Catholic elementary school, I graduated from Scarsdale High School in 1968, smack dab in the middle of “the revolution”. A very foolish first marriage fell victim to the mantra of “…love the one you’re with” and “open marriage” while I completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts with a double studio major in Ceramic and Fibers/Fabrics in 1979 at Northern Illinois University. Then it was off to Baton Rouge and graduate school, for an MFA in Ceramics at LSU, where I soon met and moved in with a charismatic character, originally from Yorktown Heights. Having somehow managed to have survived my “sex and drugs and rock’n’roll” phase, I was actually ready to settle down with one guy: unfortunately he wasn’t. After more than 2 years of physical and verbal abuse, continuous scams, a particularly lush crop of sinsimella growing in the garage, and an endless stream of other women at the house while I was at school and working in the studio, I decided that it was time to move out and complete my degree, even though I had absolutely no idea what I was going to “do” with it. Then I got pregnant.
And so began the odyssey of the next phase of my life. I had prenatal care in 3 states, all on Medicaid. First Bill moved us from Baton Rouge to Atlanta, where I eventually connected with the midwives at the Grady Hospital clinic. By Thanksgiving it was obvious that things weren't going well for him in Atlanta, so Bill called my parents to announce that we were coming to New York. They were less than thrilled at the prospect, but my mom prevailed. Less than a month before my due date, with Bill ranting and raving, I packed and carried boxes to the rental truck, and thought about Mary on the road to Bethlehem as we drove north. Raphael was born at St. Agnes hospital on December 20, 1982. I was almost 33 and had no idea what I was going to do with my life, other than mother this baby and try to make a family.
But God was working His plan in the background, unbeknownst to me. I began attending La Leche League meetings, and then fell in with the local network of childbirth educators and midwives. I began to feel drawn to the work of assisting women during this time in their lives. After several more years of abuse, followed by a sojourn in a battered women’s shelter, orders of protection, etc, Bill finally exited the scene. Hindsight indicates that he was bipolar with anti-social personality disorder. He died this past January 3, from lung cancer at 59 years old, but God worked it out, after 15+ years of no contact, for me to talk with him on the last 3 days that he was alive while he was in the hospital in Baton Rouge...
I became a La Leche League leader and learned how to assist mothers with a whole range of breastfeeding and parenting challenges. With my mother’s support and assistance, I began nursing school when Raphael entered kindergarten. Mom re-arranged her work schedule to fit my clinical rotations and watched Raphael while I studied, all of which was critical to my earning a BSN from Lehman College in 1991.
I was blessed to be able to get right into maternity unit nursing at New Rochelle Hospital and then worked postpartum, labor & delivery and well-baby nursery at St. Agnes. In 1997, despite a non-supportive step-family situation and ongoing school-problems with Raphael, I completed the Midwifery Education program at SUNY/Downstate in Brooklyn and returned once again to St. Agnes, now as a Certified Nurse-Midwife, in 1998. For the past seven years I have worked at Our Lady of Mercy Medical Center on 233rd Street, where my primary responsibility is in providing prenatal care to a Medicaid-eligible clinic population. In this setting, I am primary provider for the pregnant teens residing at Rosalie Hall, a maternity home sponsored by the Miserecordia sisters. Raphael was a difficult kid with major attitude, miserable to raise through high school, so there’s not much that “my girls” say or do in clinic that I haven’t dealt with before. In addition, not a week goes by without my encountering a pregnant woman who is dealing with any number of the issues that I “survived”.
More recently, I have become trained in the Creighton Model FertilityCare System, which teaches women how to recognize their own unique signs of fertility, in order to achieve or avoid pregnancy. With a 99% effectiveness rate in avoiding pregnancy, and solid scientific underpinnings, we are able to offer a holistic, woman-centered approach which provides a real alternative for women who are concerned about the adverse effects of taking steroidal contraceptives for years at a time. This natural method also works cooperatively with a woman’s cycle to help identify and correct a
variety of reproductive problems, including infertility, in ways that are morally-acceptable and compatible with the principles espoused by Pope Paul VI in “Humane Vitae”.
This year’s theme is “Women Helping Women”. La Leche League volunteer leaders continue to provide mother-to-mother support to women who wish to breastfeed their babies, sometimes in very challenging circumstances. “Midwife” actually means “with woman”. The official slogan of the American College of Nurse-Midwives is “With women, for a lifetime”. Midwives are particularly known for their commitment to “Listen to Women”. So, on reflection, maybe I’m NOT such an unlikely candidate after all, but another example of how God writes straight with crooked lines.
Thank you for this honor, and may God bless you all in your work.
Brigid Faranda reads and presents Mott-Stanton-Anthony award (text below).
Judith Anderson presents roses on behalf of the HVCL.
Read Judith Anderson's closing remarks in the previous posting about Women's Equality Day Reformed.
Mott = Stanton =Anthony Award
to
Gabrielle Long Wright, CNM
In Recognition of
her professional dedication and holistic approach to women’s
maternal health and education as nurse-midwife, teacher, and
advocate. Her intelligence, energy and generous spirit guide her
skilled and compassionate outreach to women in need.
In Recognition of
her courage in emulating the pro-life values and the ideals
of Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony,
champions of the inherent dignity of human life
and of equal rights for women
