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ADAPT Community Network’s
2018 Inaugural ADAPT Leadership Awards Gala
To
Be Hosted By
Judy
Woodruff, Anchor and Managing Editor of the PBS
NewsHour
Honoring
Al
Roker & Deborah Roberts, The Hausman Family,
Marissa Shorenstein, and Amy Wright
Thursday, March 8th 2018
At
Cipriani 42nd Street in New York City
Lynda Carter is Honorary Chair of the
Gala
2018 ADAPT Leadership Award honorees
include, Al Roker, Co-host
and Weatherman of NBC's Today Show and
his wife Deborah
Roberts, ABC
News Correspondent for 20/20, Nightline, Good
Morning America, and ABC
World News Tonight with David Muir; The
Hausman Family, one of the Founding
families of United Cerebral Palsy of NYC; Marissa
Shorenstein, President, Northeast, AT&T;
and Amy Wright, Founder and CEO
of Bitty & Beau's Coffee, and 2017
CNN Hero of the Year.
2018 Co-Chairs of the gala
are: James
Hausman and Liz Cohen Hausman; James
Kase and Helene Miller; Sabina
McCarthy; and Alan
Zack.
Honorary Chair of this
year’s gala is Lynda
Carter, Actress, Singer and Activist. Honorary
Co-Chairs are Tamsen
Fadal, Eight-time
Emmy winning Anchor of PIX 11 News and Mike
Woods, Meteorologist
and Reporter FOX 5’s Good Day New York.
“We
are honored to have such distinguished and deserving
honorees for our inaugural ADAPT Leadership Awards,”
says Edward R.
Matthews, CEO of ADAPT Community Network. “The
Hausman Family is the founding family of this
organization. We are extremely proud to recognize
their enormous achievements and contributions over
four generations. I am personally grateful for their
incredible support and encouragement during my
almost 30 years here. Al
Roker and Deborah Roberts are not only leaders
in the media world but have worked for over two
decades to help children and families from all walks
of life including children with disabilities and are
longtime supporters of ADAPT Community Network. We
recognize Marissa
Shorenstein for her leadership and important
ongoing philanthropic work and for the role AT&T
plays in innovative technology for people with
disabilities. We are particularly pleased to honor
parent, advocate, business leader and role model Amy
Wright whose vision and courage as a mother of
four children (two with disabilities) is a story of
inspiration which has resonated and touched the
lives of people around the world.”
Judy Woodruff is
the anchor and managing editor of the PBS
NewsHour. She is also a past Women Who Care
honoree. Woodruff has covered politics and other
news for more than four decades at CNN, NBC and PBS.
For 12 years, Woodruff served as anchor and senior
correspondent for CNN, where her duties included
anchoring the weekday program, "Inside Politics."
At PBS from 1983 to 1993, she was the chief
Washington correspondent for The MacNeil/Lehrer
NewsHour. From 1984-1990, she also anchored PBS'
award-winning weekly documentary series, "Frontline
with Judy Woodruff."
She is the recent recipient of the
Cine Lifetime Achievement award, a Duke
Distinguished Alumni award, the Edward R. Murrow
Lifetime Achievement Award in Broadcast
Journalism/Television, the University of Southern
California Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in
Journalism, the Al Neuharth/University of South
Dakota Award for Excellence in Journalism and the
Gaylord Prize for Excellence in Journalism and Mass
Communications from the University of Oklahoma,
among others.
Al
Roker is currently the Co-host
and Weatherman of NBC's Today Show. As
a host and weatherman of NBC’s Today Show, along
with Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb, Al Roker has
the undivided attention of the nation (over 32
million viewers per week) every weekday morning as
America prepares for work. Spanning a 35-year plus
career and a thirteen-time Emmy winner, Al conducts
interviews with celebrities and newsmakers around
the world and does a wide variety of segments on
every imaginable subject.
Al is also an accomplished television
producer. He is CEO of Al Roker Entertainment, Inc.
(ARE); a thriving multimedia company involved in the
development and production of network, cable, and
home video. ARE produces programming for a diverse
clientele including NBC News, MSNBC, Spike TV,
Lifetime Television, A&E, The History Channel, E!,
Discovery Networks, PBS, TV ONE, Oxygen, The Cartoon
Network, The Weather Channel and NBC Television
Stations Group. More: https://www.linkedin.com/company/al-roker-entertainment
As a leader in new media
broadcasting, Al recently launched Roker Media http://rokermedia.tv (@RKRMedia),
a creative consortium combining talent, production,
amplification, and brand building for digital and
live streaming platforms, leveraging audiences where
they live online. Working with the latest media
technology, Roker Media produces a new generation of
shareable social video content for an on-the-go,
mobile-first audience.
Al is a bestselling author with ten
acclaimed books to his credit and just completed his
first book for kids, “Al Roker’s Extreme
Weather: Tornadoes,
Typhoons, and Other Weather Phenomena”
– released in August from Harper Collins. His
mystery novel, “The Midnight Show Murders” is
now being made into a TV movie for the Hallmark
Channel, starring Holly Peete Robinson, coming 2018.
Deborah Roberts is
an award winning ABC
News Correspondent for 20/20, Nightline, Good
Morning America, and ABC World News Tonight with
David Muir. A
media veteran, Roberts is a highly respected
journalist who has traveled the world in her
reporting. She has also served as
substitute anchor for Good
Morning America, World News Weekend and 20/20, as
well as a co-host on The View.
Roberts’ long form reports on 20/20 have
consistently produced extraordinary narratives such
as an intimate profile of first lady Michelle Obama,
first daughter Ivanka Trump and an in depth
investigation into abuse within the Amish community.
She has reported from Africa on children orphaned by
the HIV/AIDS crisis and was part of the historic
coverage of the inauguration of President Barack
Obama.
Roberts has been awarded multiple
Emmy awards for her international and national
coverage of world events, including her poignant
reporting on an Ethiopian American woman’s emotional
journey back to her African village to discover her
long lost mother.
Roberts is author of “Been There,
Done That: Family Wisdom For Modern Times,” a book
written with her husband, Al Roker. She makes her
home in Manhattan with her husband and two children.
The Hausman Family has had
a profound impact on healthcare systems in New York
over decades. This began with three brothers born
and raised in New York; Sam, Jack and Leo Hausman,
who spent their lives in the textile industry
building a family-owned and operated national
business. Their philanthropic nature combined with
a personal connection to disability, when Jack and
his wife Ethel Hausman’s son Peter was diagnosed
with cerebral palsy at a young age. This sparked a
family commitment to raising money for medical
advances, research and life improvements for
children andadults with cerebral palsy and related
conditions. In 1946, they founded United Cerebral
Palsy of New York City (now ADAPT Community
Network), which is celebrating its 71st year.
Jack and Ethel, together with Leonard and Isabelle
Goldenson, then created the Cerebral Palsy Research
& Education Foundation and established the Greater
NY & National UCP Telethon, which raised over $500
million. Leo Hausman served as Board Chair of
United Cerebral Palsy of NYC for 40 years.
As the Hausman families moved from
the Bronx to Long Island, they also took this spirit
in helping found both North Shore and Long Island
Jewish Medical Centers now known as the Northwell
Health System, which is the largest health care
system in NY State. While
Leo and Jack were always at the forefront, Sam was
always using his relationships with the State's
gubernatorial and legislative leadership to help
fund these needed services.
The legacy of the Hausman family has
continued for four generations with their children
and grandchildren who proudly participate today in
leadership roles on the ADAPT Community Network
Board of Directors and in volunteer capacities.
Marissa Shorenstein currently
serves as Regional President, Northeast Region for
AT&T where she oversees the company’s external
affairs for all states from Maine to Virginia,
including Washington, DC. She previously served as
AT&T’s New York State president. Prior
to joining AT&T, Marissa ran Marissa Shorenstein
LLC, where she offered strategic communications
consulting services to a wide range of clients
including private sector institutions facing PR
crises, tech startups looking for guidance on
product launches, hedge funds and private equity
firms requiring investor relations and sales and
marketing assistance and non-profit organizations
desiring speechwriting and story placement
expertise.
Marissa was Director of
Communications for Andrew Cuomo’s successful 2010
campaign for Governor of New York State. Before
joining the Cuomo campaign, she was Press Secretary
and Deputy Director of Communications for Governor
David A. Paterson where she also oversaw
communications for the dozens of states agencies
across the state.
Shorenstein serves on the Executive
Committees of the New York State Business Council,
the Citizens Budget Commission, the Jewish Community
Relations Council of New York (JCRC-NY) and the
Women’s Forum of New York. She also serves on the
Board of Directors of Girls Who Code, the Women’s
Leadership Council of the Lincoln Center Corporate
Fund, The Battery Conservancy and the YMCA of New
York City’s Development Committee) in addition to
representing AT&T at the Partnership for New York
City.
Amy Wright is the
Founder/CEO Bitty & Beau’s Coffee. Born the oldest
of five children, Amy has always had an
entrepreneurial spirit. Eventually, her backyard
talent shows were replaced with a stint on Broadway
after she earned her BFA from the University of
Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.
Fortunately, along the way, she met and married “Mr.
Wright.” Today, they're the proud parents of four
children – their two youngest having Down syndrome,
which makes them feel like they won the lottery
twice! As an advocate for the value, acceptance and
inclusion of people with intellectual and
developmental disabilities (IDD), Amy has worked
collaboratively with the Special Olympics and Best
Buddies International producing music videos that
promote their platforms. She is also a contributing
writer for Maria Shriver's "Architects for Change."
Amy helped develop the first business
model for employing people with IDD in the financial
services sector at Dye Creek Capital, an independent
investment practice owned by her husband, Ben. She
later founded ABLE to Work USA, a non-profit that
helps people with IDD find meaningful employment.
Amy’s vision for changing the 80% national
unemployment rate for people with IDD, led her to
her most fulfilling business venture yet – founding
Bitty & Beau’s Coffee. The shop, which is run by 40
people with IDD, has been featured on the Today
Show, CNN, Good Morning America, BBC, Harry Show,
Southern Living & People Magazine as well as the
Rachael Ray Show, where the brand was named the
OFFICIAL COFFEE of the Rachael Ray Show.
Amy is the 2018 recipient of the
William C. Friday Award, the Trillium Transformation
of Lives Award, The National Inclusion Project
Champion Award, the UNCW Citizen of the Year Award,
and was recently named 2017 CNN Hero of the Year.
Bitty & Beau’s Coffee’s headquarters are located in
Wilmington, NC with additional shops opening
nationwide.
About ADAPT Community Network
ADAPT
Community Network (formerly United Cerebral Palsy of
New York City) is
the leading human service not-for-profit and a
pioneer in providing cutting edge programs
and services for people with disabilities.
Every day, we build a more inclusive world for
thousands of New Yorkers through education,
technology, health, residential and recreational
programs in all five boroughs. Our
schools and services encompass many people who have
challenges beyond cerebral palsy such as autism,
Down syndrome, spina bifida and neuromuscular
disorders, among others. We are the largest provider
of pre-school education for children with
disabilities in New York. ADAPT’s 100 comprehensive
programs serve over 18,000 children and adults with
disabilities and their families.
For ticket & table information, or
sponsorship opportunities contact:
adaptgala@tbg-world.com | 212-683-6700
x1201. |