16th Annual Women’s Equality Day Luncheon Honors Unsung Hero, Inspirational Leader Albion Fellows Bacon Award Winners
Evansville, IN, August 24, 2018 – Two women were honored with an Albion Fellows Bacon Award for their exemplary dedication and motivational leadership at the 16th Annual Women’s Equality Day Luncheon. Sondra Matthews will receive the Unsung Hero Award, and Deena Laska Lewis will receive the Inspirational Leader Award.
Inspirational Leader: Deena Laska Lewis is founder of the nonprofit dance organization Children’s Center for Dance Education, whose mission is Every Child Should Dance. Through its inclusive programming and tuition assistance, the Center offers outreach dance programs. Laska Lewis believes that dance is the means of reaching children who would not otherwise be able to study ballet, tap, and ethnic dances. Beyond dance, she helps children with their problems including lack of transportation, academic challenges, low self-esteem, and depression.
Unsung Hero: Sondra Matthews is a tireless advocate for people in need in the Evansville community. She was the force behind the creation of the Evansville African American Museum and the founder of the Our Times newspaper. Additionally, Matthews works with community organizations such as serving the tenant councils of the Evansville Housing Authority, volunteering with the Soul Writers’ Guild of the Evansville African American Museum, teaching Sunday School, organizing voter registration, and visiting people in the hospital or nursing homes.
The Albion Fellows Bacon Award commemorates the passage of the 19th amendment, granting women the right to vote in America. The Women’s Equality Day Luncheon will be held on Friday, August 24, 2018, from 11:30 am to 1:00 pm at the Old National Events Plaza.
The 2018 Women’s Equality Day Speaker was Rabbi Sandy Eisenberg Sasso. Rabbi Sasso served as Senior Rabbi of Congregation Beth-El Zedeck, Indianapolis from 1977- 2013. She currently is the director of the Religion, spirituality and the Arts Initiative at IUPUI Arts and Humanities Institute. Rabbi Sasso is active in the arts, civic and interfaith communities and has written and lectured on women and spirituality and the discovery of the religious imagination in children. She co-founded Women4Change Indiana in 2017.
Rabbi Sasso has been honored as one of the “Influential Women in Indiana” by the Indianapolis Business Journal and was featured among “Indy’s Most Influential Clergy” by NUVO News Weekly. She is the recipient of the “Sagamore of the Wabash”, the highest civilian honor awarded by the Governor of the State of Indiana. She received the Heritage Keepers Award from the Indiana State Museum and The Spirit of the Prairie Award from Conner Prairie. She was a featured speaker at the Women’s March in 2017 and 2018. In 2018, she and her husband, Dennis were designated as Interfaith Ambassadors of the Year by the Center for Interfaith Cooperation in Indiana.
Sponsor and ticket information can be found at http://steppingupevv.com/women-equality-day/tickets/. Sponsorship levels begin at $325 for a table. Individual tickets are $30 each.