| Community
Father Gregory Boyle
Directing Homeboy Industries
Boyle Heights may not be named for Father Gregory Boyle, but the Los
Angeles community known for its high concentration of gang activity and
youth violence is certainly better off with him as their tireless champion.
Father Boyle is the founder and executive director of Jobs For A Future,
an employment referral center that assists nearly 1,000 people a month in
finding work and redirecting lives. He is also the brains behind Homeboy
Industries, which develops job opportunities for at-risk youths. By addressing
the problems at the root of gang activity, Father Boyle strives to help
youngsters plan futures free of violence and premature death.
Born in Los Angeles, Father Boyle devoted himself to helping others at
an early age. He is a Jesuit priest who received his Master of Divinity
from the Weston School of Theology and an STM degree from the Jesuit School
of Theology. Before founding Jobs For A Future, he served as a pastor at
the Dolores Mission, taught English at Loyola High School and worked as
a chaplain at the Islas Marias penal colony in Mexico.
Boyle founded Jobs For A Future in 1988, by putting faith in the mantra
that “nothing stops a bullet like a job.” Responding to the civil unrest
that swept Los Angeles in the early ’90s, Boyle expanded Jobs For A Future
to include Homeboy Industries, which provides training, work experience
and the opportunity for rival gang members to work side by side. In its
10 plus years, Homeboy has launched several successful enterprises, including
Homeboy Silkscreen, Homeboy Landscaping, Homeboy Bakery and Homeboy/Homegirl
Merchandise.
Unsurprisingly, Boyle has been honored with numerous awards for his good
work, including the California Peace Prize from the California Wellness
Foundation, the Monroe Eason Courageous Advocate Award from the ACLU and
honorary degrees from Holy Cross and Gonzaga Universities. He also served
as part of California’s 10-person delegation to President Clinton’s Summit
on Children in 1998.
James Brosnahan
Hall of Fame Lawyer
Sometimes lauded, occasionally scorned, James Brosnahan cannot be faulted
for his passion or the strength of his convictions. As a senior partner
at the San Francisco law firm Morrison & Foerster, he has taken on some
of the country’s most controversial cases. In 2001, Brosnahan represented
John Walker Lindh, the American who converted to Islam and joined the Taliban
in Afghanistan. His representation of Lindh made Brosnahan a target for
numerous death threats and media pressure to back down from the case. Brosnahan
is not a man to back down, and as his case history proves, he refuses to
take the word of the government as gospel. In 1992, he joined the prosecution
against former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger for perjury in the
Iran-Contra affair, in which the CIA illegally financed mercenaries in Nicaragua
using funds from weapons sold to Iran. Among other famous cases, Brosnahan
defended Kevin Barry Artt, an accused member of the Irish Republican Army
(IRA), from extradition after Artt’s escape from Maze Prison in Northern
Ireland. Brosnahan argued that Artt was tried during a period of bias in
the history of Northern Ireland’s justice system. The trial brought Brosnahan
to Northern Ireland for the first time, and eventually turned him into a
different sort of advocate. In 1999, Brosnahan went to Belfast to investigate
the murder of Rosemary Nelson, an attorney known for her defense of Irish
nationalists, and to help protect other attorneys in Northern Ireland from
a similar fate.
Brosnahan always carries a copy of the Constitution in his shirt pocket,
facing outwards. This year, he told Verdict Magazine, “I am not going around
trying to pick fights, but the Constitution is worth defending, and that’s
why I carry it.”
Another issue equally close to his heart is that of proper representation
for the poor. In 1977, he started the Volunteer Lawyers Service, an organization
to ensure that the poor receive representation and operated on the basis
that lawyers would donate five percent of their time to do so.
In 2001, Brosnahan was named “Trial Lawyer of the Year” by the American
Board of Trial Advocates, and was inducted into the State Bar of California’s
“Trial Lawyers’ Hall of Fame.” He is third-generation Irish-American, and
traces his Irish ancestry back to the potato famines of the late 19th century.
Bill Flynn
Northern Ireland Peacemaker
His work as chairman of Mutual of America Life Insurance Company is the
least of what makes Bill Flynn “outstanding.” In the 1990s, Flynn was a
crucial figure in the Northern Ireland peace process, chairing the National
Committee on Foreign Policy and helping to broker the IRA cease-fire. In
1999, the National Committee on American Foreign Policy published Journey
to Belfast and London, a report and policy recommendations. That year, Flynn
was also honored at the Peace Links gala in Washington for his efforts to
bring peace to Northern Ireland.
Flynn is also the chairman of Flax Trust America, an organization committed
to the relief of poverty, dependency and unemployment in Northern Ireland.
He serves on the Boards of The Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation, The
Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, Nassau County Crime Stoppers, The Ireland
America Economic Advisory Board to the Taoiseach and The Forum Club.
Early in 2001, Flynn received the Outstanding Civilian Service Medal
from the Department of the Army for extraordinary service as an expert consultant
on the U.S. Army War College Board of Visitors. He is also a recipient of
the Ellis Island Medal of Honor and the American Cancer Society’s Alfred
P. Sloan Jr. Memorial Award and the Life Services for the Handicapped National
Leadership Award. In 1999 Irish America named him to the Greatest Irish-Americans
of the Century list.
A first generation Irish-American, with roots in Counties Mayo and Down,
Flynn and his wife Peg have four children and eleven grandchildren.
Loretta Brennan Glucksman
The American Ireland Fund
As a child growing up in Allentown, PA, Loretta Brennan Glucksman was
discouraged from speaking Irish. “My grandmother wouldn’t allow Irish in
the house; she said her children were Americans and would speak American
English.” While always proud of her Irish heritage, it wasn’t until marrying
her second husband, Lew Glucksman, that she was able to fully embrace it.
Starting with her first trip to Ireland in 1987, Loretta became mesmerized
with the culture. She has since been appointed Chairman of The American
Ireland Fund (AIF) and in the last five years has raised $111 million, helping
to make it the largest Irish fundraising group in the world. The AIF encourages
peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland through culture and the arts,
education and community development. She and Lew are also responsible for
New York University’s Glucksman Ireland House, an institution that in its
11 years of operation has become a cornerstone of Irish culture in New York.
Prior to her role in the AIF, Loretta had a varied career as a teacher,
newscaster and publicist. Her maternal grandparents, McHugh and Murray,
immigrated to America from Leitrim in famine times. Of her paternal grandparents,
all she knows is that they were from Donegal.
The Glucksmans have been married for 18 years. Loretta has two sons and
a daughter from a previous marriage.
Grace Deveney
Concern in Sudan
Grace Deveney, a Massachusetts native, is a nurse working on the front
lines of the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, Sudan. Approximately 1.5 million
people have been displaced and 70,000 killed in the conflict that has been
going on for more than a year in the remote Darfur region. Deveney works
with Concern’s nutrition programs, providing food and health care for the
youngest victims of this conflict, malnourished children under the age of
five. The following diary entry is based on Deveney’s experiences in Darfur.
December 4, 2004: I have been here for three months and haven’t cried.
I didn’t really expect myself to. I haven’t really cried in years. I think
it has something to do with being a nurse. Seeing so many sad things every
day, you find a way of detaching yourself on some level. And so you adjust,
and, although you recognize intellectually the sadness in a situation, you
don’t feel it the same way that you would have in earlier years.
But with all that being said, I cried today. Ironically, it wasn’t a situation
that one would think would inspire tears. It wasn’t for the man on our nutrition
team who lost his two brothers in an attack on the road going north; and
it wasn’t for the woman who was raped nine months ago and then driven out
of her home, with her eight children, by her husband because her child was
born with Arab features; and it wasn’t for the baby who couldn’t open her
eyes because her conjunctivitis had gotten so bad, and her mother did not
possess the knowledge or the resources to treat her; and it wasn’t for the
fragile little grandmother who was caring for her two orphaned handicapped
grandchildren – carrying the seven year old on her back because he had never
learned to walk. I felt so sorry for all of these people but I never cried.
Ridiculously enough, I cried during a demonstration of how to make Corn
Soya Blend into porridge.
The national staff members were well into a demonstration for a small
group of mothers who were laughing and chatting as they waited for the porridge
to thicken. I admit that I was a bit distracted and as the mothers and staff
chatted away in Arabic, I was contentedly watching the four cutest little
boys playing outside of our shelter. Knowing they were being watched, they
were waving and shouting and jumping off things, as little boys do. The
oldest of the four was only about five years old. When the porridge was
done we decided to invite the boys inside to eat. Amani, our Health Educator,
called them inside, and, slightly unsure, they conceded. Using a mug full
of water and a sandy bar of soap, Amani washed their hands and faces, sat
them down on a grass mat and placed the plate of porridge in front of them.
I sat in the corner, idiotically beaming and thinking “THIS is what it is
all about.” And I watched them eat in silence. They ate with their hands,
as they do here – the five year old scooping up a handful and putting it
into the hand of his two year old brother before taking another handful
for himself. I watched as they silently scraped the plate clean and then
allowed Amani to wash their hands and faces again. Then the five year old
stooped down to allow the two year old to climb on his back and the boys
walked away in silence.
It was such a lovely thing to witness and I don’t know at what point
it all became so sad to me. I just started thinking about the children at
home and comparing them to these four boys and suddenly I had a lump in
my throat. It was so many things. I watched the kids eating porridge and
thought...Do children at home even eat porridge anymore? And, if they do,
how much do they complain about it first? Perhaps, they want Coco Puffs
or Sugar Bears or “something else.” And I realized I had witnessed one of
the realities of life for the children of Darfur. Eating will never be about
choice, it will always be about opportunity. This realization seemed amplified
by their silence. They never said a word. I noticed the silence and it filled
me with a deep sadness but I didn’t figure out why until the children had
gone. I realized then that it was the intensity in this silence that was
so disturbing. A fearfulness that perhaps, if they made any noise or moved
too quickly, the food would disappear or the provider would change their
mind and take the food away. A learned reaction to a desperation that I
never knew as a child and therefore will never truly understand. I thought
of all these things and cried. And as I cried I asked why. That impotent
sort of why that you know has no answer. And I found that once I started
crying I couldn’t stop and now I was crying for the man and his brothers,
and the woman who lost her place in her community, and the baby who may
lose her sight, and the grandmother who is so alone in her burden.
But then Amani put her hand on my shoulder and as I looked at her I thought
about how beautiful it was to see her wash the children’s hands and faces.
The natural tenderness and compassion in the way she interacted with them
as though those children belonged to her. And I thought of the embraces
for the man who lost his brothers, and the national staff’s impromptu collection
for the woman with eight children, and the neighbor of the grandmother who
carried her bag of porridge for her, and I remembered. I remembered that
the world is not perfect but it is those things that seem so small that
really make a difference. I remembered that a compassionate hand on a shoulder
may not bring with it the power to heal but for a moment it just might feel
like it.
To read more of Grace’s “Diary of an Aid Worker” and keep up to date
on Concern Worldwide log on to
http://www.concernusa.org
Randy Hayes
The Man with the 500-Year Plan
By Christopher Reilly
For most people, environmental planning starts and stops with sorting
recyclables. Randy Hayes, however, is someone with an eye squarely fixed
on the planet’s future. A dedicated activist with a passion for the rainforest,
Hayes is well-known throughout the ecological community for his ability
to plan ahead.
500 years ahead, to be exact.
Hayes is the founder and board president of Rainforest Action Network,
a nonprofit organization committed to protecting the rainforest and its
inhabitants through education and direct-action campaigns. In 1992, Hayes
put Rainforest Action Network on the map – and made a name for himself –
when, during a meeting of environmental leaders in Los Angeles, he proposed
a 500-year plan for halting deforestation. The goal of such a long-term
plan, Hayes has said, is to give people hope that change is possible.
“If you say we need to solve smog and congestion in 20 years, it seems
understandably hopeless,” Hayes explained in an interview last year. “Fifty
years, and people are open; 75, and optimism returns. A 500-year plan clears
a lot of air.”
Hayes’ love of the environment was instilled in him during his childhood.
Born in West Virginia, he spent his formative years in the swamps of central
Florida. After graduating from Bowling Green University, Hayes moved cross-country
to San Francisco, where he got his Master’s degree in environmental planning
from San Francisco State University.
He made his first foray into the environmental movement with his thesis
film, The Four Corners: A National Sacrifice Area. The film was controversial,
but won an Academy Award for best student film in 1983. Hayes spent five
years working on his thesis and came to realize that the fates of the indigenous
tribes he covered in the documentary paralleled that of the rainforest.
“What I found,” Hayes recalled last year about the film, “is that the
story of the rainforest is basically the same.” In 1985, shortly after trekking
into the rainforest for the first time, Hayes founded Rainforest Action
Network. Since its inception, the organization has strived to change the
business practices of major corporations through boycotts, protests and
public campaigns. Past victories include getting Burger King to stop buying
Central American beef, which was contributing to deforestation, convincing
Home Depot to stop selling wood products from endangered forests and, most
recently, persuading Citigroup to stop financing logging and mining operations
in tropical forests.
In addition to Rainforest Action Network, Hayes has worked for change
on the city and county levels. He spent ten years on San Francisco’s advisory
Commission on the Environment and currently works as the sustainability
director for the city of Oakland, California. Hayes believes that tackling
environmental issues in the concrete jungle can only benefit his cause.
“2004 is the first year more people live in cities than in rural areas
around the world,” Hayes said in an interview last year. “Cities are the
place to deliver the solutions.”
Appointed by Mayor Jerry Brown, Hayes has set forth several goals for
addressing Oakland’s environmental problems: an elimination of waste by
2020, a switch to alternative energy sources by 2040, and a drastic reduction
in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Like Hayes, Mayor Brown believes in
long-term planning over short-term solutions in dealing with ecological
issues.
“Society is being pressured into attention deficiency on a very broad
scale,” Brown commented last year. “That’s not ecologically sound.” He believes
that Hayes’ commitment, imagination, and non-government experience will
yield results for Oakland.
Hayes even takes his work home with him. He drives to his 100-year-old,
solar powered farmhouse in a hybrid car and tends a quarter-acre vegetable
garden. He shares the home with his wife Lillian, his teenage stepchildren
and a chicken named Betty.
Hayes is a third-generation Irish-American.
Don Keenan
Children’s Advocate
By Niall O’Dowd
Growing up in Morehead City, North Carolina, Don Keenan, (49) had daily
reminders of the discrimination that his Irish great-grandparents faced.
Downstairs in the little basement room he used as a play area his grandfather
J. Don had stacked a number of anti-Irish signs such as “No Irish Need Apply”
which had hung on businesses in the Morehead City area. His grandfather
had put them there to remind his grandson that the good life he enjoyed
came at a cost.
Keenan, now the most successful children’s advocate lawyer in America and
a regular guest on Oprah Winfrey, Good Morning America and 60 Minutes still
chokes up at the memory. “It made me a fighter all my life.” He says. “I
was never going to forget what people, black, Irish, Asian, whoever, went
through to make it in America.”
His fighting skills have served underprivileged and injured kids well.
Oprah gave him her “People Who Have Courage” award a few years ago. In his
Atlanta law office there are no pictures of Keenan hobnobbing with famous
people. Rather there are the faces of the kids whose lives he has touched,
either through his charitable foundation Keenan’s Kids or his burgeoning
law practice, one of the busiest in the South.
On his desk is a schedule of his travel itinerary, Australia, London,
his beloved Dublin, and points east and west. He is one of the most sought
after speakers on children’s issues in the world.
Up there on his wall is the smiling little face of Kathy Jo Taylor, just
two years old, beaten to death by her foster parents. Taylor was placed
in foster care despite the fact that members of her family wanted to take
her in.
Keenan represented the family pro bono and went all the way to the Supreme
Court where he won a famous victory. It came too late for Kathy but it has
helped save countless young lives since. The court ruled that the law that
mandated immediate foster care when both parents were found unfit had to
be changed and that family members had to have the opportunity to take the
child in. Incredibly, that was not the case at the time. “In the 1980s children
under the age of 18 had no constitutional rights,” said Keenan, shaking
his head. “Kathy Jo would be alive today if they did.”
There is one sweet moment every year for Keenan. On Kathy Jo’s anniversary
her family send him flowers to thank him for all he did to bring justice
to bear after her death.
Besides the photo of Kathy Jo, there is one of Terrell Peterson. He was
just five years old and in foster care when he was admitted to the emergency
room in 1998. His little body, weighing only 29 pounds, was covered in cuts,
bruises and cigarette burns. Try as they might, doctors could not restart
his heart.
The State of Georgia called a press conference and stated that they had
followed every provision of the law as it related to caring for foster children.
Don Keenan did not believe them. He took the state to court and won a landmark
victory that forced Georgia to pass a series of strict measures to protect
foster children.
Shawn Huff, Executive Director of the Atlanta Falcons Youth Foundation
and a former foster care child himself, says simply “Don Keenan is a person
who has rewritten the definition of what a hero is. His voice has shone
brightly for the voiceless children who don’t get heard.”
The fight for the underdog comes naturally to Keenan, the kind of sweet
talking Southern lawyer who belongs in a John Grisham script. Behind the
bonhomie, however, lurks the instinct of a street brawler. He has not lost
a case in 15 years.
Keenan’s great-grandparents Charles and Sarah from Dublin and Galway,
were on their way by emigrant ship to Florida in 1888 when life intervened.
The ship was forced to put ashore for repairs in North Carolina and because
Keenan’s great-grandfather was a carpenter, he helped carry them out. When
the ship left, it went without him and his new wife. They had fallen in
love with the tranquil South and decided to make their home there.
Though the scenery and the vistas were beautiful, some of the local attitudes
to post-famine Irish Catholic emigrants were not. His great-grandfather
had fruit and vegetables and rocks thrown at him, and there were streets
no Irish Catholic could walk down. Oftentimes, Irish workers were the last
to be paid, sometimes not at all. Keenan remembers his grandfather, whom
he worshiped, telling him that the family survived by growing their own
vegetables.
When Keenan was two years old, his father, Joseph, died when a boiler
he was working on exploded. Keenan’s mother was never in good health afterwards.
He was raised by his grandfather who became a local political leader as
the Irish began to climb the steep ladder out of the ghetto through the
only means open to them – politics.
Born in 1955, an only child, Keenan grew up in a time of turmoil in the
South. It was the civil rights era and his grandfather taught him his history
well. “Our family had suffered tremendous discrimination and we weren’t
about to approve of seeing that happen to other people. My grandfather often
suffered politically for his views, but he was adamant that civil rights
was the greatest thing to happen to the South since the end of slavery.”
At age 17, Don Keenan’s world was turned upside down when his grandfather
suffered a heart attack and died. Alone in the world except for his ailing
mother and grandmother, Keenan, a top student, went to school at the University
of Tennessee in Knoxville. His life was to take the first of several unpredictable
turns there.
He fell in with a group of student entrepreneurs each of whom tried to
outdo the other in starting a successful business. Keenan won the contest
hands down. By the age of 21 he was a millionaire, having opened delicatessens,
catering operations and nightclubs.
His cherished memory is of requiring vast amounts of cheese for a new
upscale food venture he was planning and flying to Switzerland because he
read that was where the best cheese was. He recalls getting off the plane
in Zurich and asking a puzzled immigration officer “Where’s the cheese at?”
A year or so later with $1.8 million in the bank he was at USC in southern
California studying law. He bought himself a Jaguar and a cell phone, one
of the first ever made. “It took up most of the trunk of the car,” he remembers.
“There were about three people in the world I could call.”
As quickly as he made the money, however, Keenan lost it again. Bad investments
landed him back in the genteel poverty he had grown up in. He resolved to
start all over again.
This time it was tougher. He attended Atlanta Law School at night. During
the day he worked and when possible went to every trial in every courtroom
he could find to study how it could be done. He learned a lot.
Even before his law license was finally delivered he found himself defending
a car thief. He figured the guy would get off even if guilty, because technically
he was not qualified to defend him. That never arose, as he won his first
case.
Soon the young silver-tongued lawyer from North Carolina began making
a reputation for himself. People began sending cases to him. He was closely
paralleling the career of Senator John Edwards, another North Carolinian
who later became a very close friend.
Keenan had thought that practicing criminal law would be the apex of
his professional life. Instead it was a disillusioning experience. “They
were all guilty,” he says now. “ I thought I would be saving innocents,
but the facts turned out different. I can’t remember an innocent person
I represented.”
Keenan also took several death penalty cases, saving his clients from
the ultimate fate but ending up more disillusioned than ever about the process.
“I was very successful but I was absolutely miserable,” he says.
It was a period when he admits frankly he was drinking way too much.
Friends eventually came to his rescue, corralling him in a cabin in a very
remote area and taking his car keys away. By the time he got back to civilization
he had changed his ways.
His path to sobriety coincided with the breakthrough case that would
change his life forever.
Atlanta in the late 1970s was in the grip of fear. A monstrous child
killer was on the loose and by 1981, 29 young black kids had been murdered.
Police were baffled and it seemed the killer might never be caught.
The mothers of the dead children came to see Keenan. They had formed
an organization called The Committee to Stop Children’s Murders and claimed
that the entire investigation was being badly mishandled by police.
Whispers had circulated, fanned by law enforcement sources, that some
of the mothers had killed their own children and that funds they had raised
were missing. The parents were distraught.
Keenan took charge. Through civil disobedience, press conferences and
speaking engagements, they held the police authorities’ feet to the flames
and kept a relentless focus on the murders. Eventually, Wayne Williams,
a young black man, was caught and convicted.
Keenan says the murders still haunt him, especially those of two boys
aged five and six whose killings have never been solved. “Authorities tried
to close the book but there are voices inside that book that are still crying
out,” he said.
Keenan’s involvement in the case led to his new career as a child advocate.
It began when he appeared on the Phil Donahue Show and heard Donahue describe
his next guest as an expert on children’s issues. Keenan looked around to
see who Donahue was talking about and realized it was him. He instantly
liked the title and set about earning it.
“I know what effect other people’s negligence can have on a child,” he
says, “and it ultimately dictated what I did with the rest of my life.”
There are almost 50 photographs on the wall of Keenan’s law firm, all
of kids he has successfully represented since he became a child advocate
lawyer. They are proof of a wide range of horrific violence that has been
visited on kids.
Among his cases are abused and murdered foster care kids, babies who
were accidentally castrated during circumcision (two in one week in the
same hospital), kids who suffered horrific birth defects as a result of
negligence, and kids shot, burned, beaten, and abandoned. One case still
stands out for him. Elizabeth Leake was a ten-year-old girl who was attacked
by a paranoid schizophrenic wielding a hammer in front of her terrified
classmates. It turned out that school security was incredibly lax. After
he won the case Keenan succeeded in forcing authorities to tighten access
to schools all over the state and eventually all over the country.
The Leake case fell under what Keenan calls his one-third solution. The
first one-third is to prosecute the case and see that justice is done. The
second is to promote safety awareness around the issue. The third part of
the solution is to remedy those wrongs by bringing about legislative change.
In the case of Hannah Helms, a young two-year-old girl killed by a branch
falling from a rotting tree, Keenan’s foundation did exhaustive research
and found that playground accidents are one of the biggest causes of death
for children in America. Keenan succeeded in having regular playground safety
inspections carried out in many states.
He has also helped distribute thousands of gunlocks to households where
guns and children are both present. It is practical steps such as these
that he believes can make the difference.
Unsafe toys is also a constant cause for Keenan. Each year his foundation,
Keenan’s Kids, lists the ten most dangerous and defective toys on the market.
He was horrified to find that some toy manufacturers, once they appear on
his list, immediately pull the toys in the U.S. and ship them overseas.
He has pursued companies to countries as far away as China and South America
to stop the practice.
Keenan founded Keenan’s Kids in 1992, when he decided that his charitable
donations were being poorly used by existing charities. He began by focusing
on children’s safety issues but also provided a very practical program of
supplying clothes for kids in deprived communities. As of this year, through
determined outreach, Keenan’s Kids has supplied over 400,000 items of clothing
for kids in need. Another aspect is the making of bologna sandwiches to
bring to neighborhood shelters and food banks. Even if you are a casual
visitor to Keenan’s law firm you may have to do your duty preparing sandwiches
for that day’s run. He estimates over 250,000 sandwiches have been distributed
in the dozen years of the program.
Before every major case Keenan takes everything personally. He lives
with the family of the plaintiff for a few days “walking in their shoes”
as he puts it. He makes extensive use of focus groups to determine whether
or not this argument or that one could work before he comes to face the
judge.
Keenan says much of his passion comes from his Irish heritage and the
values his grandfather taught him. He visits Ireland once or twice a year
and keeps in touch through a number of Irish organizations. He says his
will to win and fierce determination are the Irish traits he values most.
“I’ve never had an opponent who has outworked me in terms of the will to
get the win for my little kids,” he says. “I think that’s my most important
ability.” His opponents would certainly say “amen” to that.
Don Keough
Notre Dame Benefactor
Eleven years ago, Donald Keough retired as president and chief operating
officer of The Coca-Cola Company. He had been a crucial member of the company
since 1950. Until this year, directors couldn’t be re-elected when they
reached 74. Keough, now 76, has remained an influential member of the company,
and this year returned to the post of director, marking a change in Coca-Cola’s
retirement policy – a change which, though seemingly small, makes a definitive
statement against ageism. Coca-Cola CEO Doug Daft subsequently stated in
a company memo that, “Good corporate governance includes being able to recruit
and retain the most qualified directors – based on experience, perspective
and unique ability, not on age.”
Keough has made many vital contributions to the Irish-American community,
donating $2.5 million to establish the Donald R. Keough Chair in Irish Studies
at Notre Dame University in 1992, and establishing The Keough Notre Dame
Centre in Dublin. He also led several delegations of American business people
on trips to Ireland and Northern Ireland.
The recipient of the Horatio Alger Award, the highest award given to
American Catholics, and the Notre Dame Laetare Medal, he is also a member
of the Taoiseach’s (Irish Prime Minister) Economic Advisory Board.
Though Keough has reigned over the world’s largest beverage company,
his beginnings were of a humble nature. He was born in Dubuque, Iowa to
a farmer and cattleman, and started at the bottom rung at The Coca-Cola
Company before working his way up to president and chief operating officer.
In addition to his role at Coca-Cola, Keough is chairman of the board
of Allen & Company, a New York investment banking firm. He also serves on
the boards of IAC/InterActiveCorp, Global Yankee Holdings, Convera Corporation,
Berkshire Hathaway Inc., McDonald’s Corporation, The Washington Post Company,
H. J. Heinz Company and Home Depot.
Denis Kelleher
The Grand Marshal
In 1958, Denis Kelleher emigrated from County Kerry and landed a job
as a messenger at Merrill Lynch. Acutely talented in matters of finance,
Kelleher quickly rose through the company ranks.
Following his Merrill Lynch stint, Kelleher served as Vice President
and Treasurer of the Sequoia Fund, and founded his own company, Ruane Cunniff
& Co. Today, he is CEO and founder of Wall Street Access, a diversified
financial services organization with expertise in money management and trading
for institution and hedge funds. The company has been in business since
1981, and offers a number of financial services, ranging from retirement
planning to college planning.
Despite his extraordinary success, Kelleher has never lost sight of his
humble roots. He has been a major contributor to the American Ireland Fund
and has his own special scholarship fund in his native Kerry to help promising
students. This year, Kelleher will serve as the Grand Marshal for the New
York City St. Patrick’s Day Parade. He is a graduate of St. John’s University,
and serves as its chairman of the board. He is also a board member of SI
Bank & Trust and The New Ireland Fund.
Kelleher is married with three children and was proud to be recognized
with the Ellis Island Medal of Honor in 1995.
Joe Leary
The Irish American Partnership
Joseph F. Leary, Jr., a native Bostonian and graduate of Boston College,
Class of 1959, has been the President and CEO of The Irish American Partnership
since April 1988.The Partnership is a non-profit, charitable corporation,
organizing Irish American support on behalf of job training, economic development
and education in Ireland, North and South. Headquartered in Boston, The
Irish American Partnership is one of the largest Irish American organizations
in the United States with over 18,000 members.
For the past several years, the Partnership has issued grants of $15
million to nearly 200 projects and programs in Ireland, North and South.
The University of Limerick is one such organization to have received grants
from the Partnership. The Partnership has also partially funded a $300,000
three-year Science program for fifteen schools in County Kerry. In August
2004, Leary and a number of representatives from the Partnership traveled
to Ireland and visited areas where the grants had been put to good use.
The trip included a visit to Stormont Castle in Belfast where they met with
the various political parties in the North and listened as the different
sides presented their positions.
Mr. Leary is a frequent traveler to Ireland and has many business, political
and educational contacts throughout the country. He writes monthly articles
on Ireland for Boston’s local Irish newspaper the Irish Reporter.
Leary traces his family heritage to Inchigeela in West Cork where his
great-grandfather married his great-grandmother in 1863, subsequently moving
to South Boston. Leary has two children, Joe and Eileen, and two grandchildren,
Nicole and Ryan.
John B. Mattingly
Children’s Services
John Mattingly has spent most of his adult life and professional career
working to improve the lives of children nationwide. He currently serves
as the commissioner of New York City’s Administration for Children’s Services
(ACS), the first agency in the city’s history dedicated solely to the care
of children. Since joining ACS last July, Mattingly has worked tirelessly
to improve the agency’s child protective, foster care, adoption and childcare
services.
Prior to accepting his current position at ACS, Mattingly served as the
Director of Human Services Reforms at the Annie E. Casey Foundation, a Baltimore-based
organization dedicated to helping disadvantaged children and families. During
his 12 plus years at the foundation, Mattingly created and managed the Family
to Family foster care initiative and helped draft child welfare policy.
Mattingly received his Ph.D. in community systems planning from Pennsylvania
State University and a Master of Social Work degree from the University
of Pittsburgh. He then went to work in his home state, directing the statewide
effort to remove juvenile offenders from Pennsylvania’s adult correctional
facilities. He has also worked for the Institute for Child Advocacy and
the West Side Community House in Cleveland as well as the Lucas County Children
Services agency in Toledo, Ohio.
Mattingly shares in his Irish heritage with Linda, his wife of 35 years,
and their two adult children. He is a third-generation Irish-American whose
lineage can be traced through his mother’s family tree to the Walsh family
of County Cork. The Mattingly family is also proud to be in possession of
a working cottage clock passed down from their Irish ancestors.
Pat McGreevy
Helping the Homeless
Pat McGreevy’s commitment to education and hard work has helped turn
a once-failing Florida residential rehabilitation program into a model of
self-sufficiency and success.
When McGreevy first walked through the doors of Fern House in 1993, the
center was nearly empty, most of its 50 beds languishing unused, and was
facing mounting financial debts. Its mission to help West Palm Beach’s homeless
and indigent male alcoholics and drug abusers was failing. Despite the odds
against Fern House’s survival, McGreevy nevertheless accepted the position
of Executive Director and vowed to turn things around. And he did just that.
Today, Fern House proudly owns the land it once struggled to rent. Both
the center and the grounds have been completely renovated under McGreevy’s
command, without spending a cent of local, state, or federal tax dollars.
Most importantly, Fern House’s substance abuse recovery program has become
both highly regarded and highly successful, with a waiting list of anxious
clients growing by the day.
McGreevy has always had a passion for education. He earned a BA in psychology
from Providence College in Rhode Island. He also did course work in substance
abuse education at the University of Rhode Island, the University of Connecticut,
Rhode Island College, and the University of Missouri. McGreevy then went
on to share his thirst for knowledge with others, teaching on both the high
school and college levels.
Prior to his move to Florida, McGreevy served as the director of the
Good Hope Center in West Greenwich, Connecticut. While working there, he
was one of eight panelists appointed to the Westerly Substance Abuse Task
Force. He also taught a class entitled The Alcohol Troubled Person at the
University of Rhode Island.
In addition to being named one of Irish America’s Top 100 Irish-Americans,
McGreevy has been the recipient of the United Way Partnership for a Drug-Free
America Award, the Peter Fairclough Memorial Recognition Award, and the
Thurgood Marshall Award.
McGreevy, a third-generation Irish-American, remembers fondly the fresh
shamrocks his grandmother would pin on his lapel every St. Patrick’s Day.
His mother’s lineage can be traced back to Mayo while his father’s family
hails from Roscommon.
Tom Moran
Champion of Concern
As President and CEO of Mutual of America and Chairman of Concern, North
America, Tom Moran is “a critical and vibrant link between American corporate
caring and the poorest of people in developing countries,” according to
Fr. Aengus Finucane, founder of Concern Worldwide.
Moran is well known in both the business world and in philanthropic circles.
Mutual of America is one of the country’s preeminent life insurance companies
serving health, education, humanitarian and government communities.
Concern Worldwide is an Irish organization dedicated to the poorest of
the poor in developing countries. Moran became a friend to the organization
when it was largely unknown in the U.S. His commitment grew from being a
caring supporter to becoming Chairman of the organization’s U.S. operation.
His high profile in the business world has been critical to building up
Concern Worldwide’s caring base in the U.S.
Siobhan Walsh, the director of Concern’s operations in America, says
that thanks to U.S. support, “We can experience the joy of seeing classrooms
full of children who would never have had a chance of education. We can
see clean water flowing in villages, roads linking remote areas, trees springing
up on barren hillsides, and adults who had not the advantage of an education
move from thumb-printing their identity to actually signing their names.
These miracles were brought about by U.S. caring and, in a special way,
by the U.S. corporate caring, which was inspired by Tom Moran.”
Moran also serves on the boards of many national charitable and civic
organizations, including the North American Board of the University College
Dublin Graduate School of Business. He traces his Irish roots to Counties
Fermanagh and Tipperary. He lives in New York with his wife Joan.
The Murphy Family
Kids with Special Needs
Like most parents, the home of John and Jeanette Murphy is filled with
pictures of their beloved children. That’s a lot of frames when you are
Mom and Dad to a family of 27.
The Murphys, already the parents of four, have opened up their home to
23 children with Down Syndrome since adopting their daughter Shannon in
1983.
Despite their special needs, John and Jeanette strive to teach their
brood – ranging in age from 13 months to 34 years – independence, teamwork
and the skills necessary to grow into thriving adults, while experiencing
as normal a childhood as possible.
They school the young children at home and teach them sign language to
help them communicate. Afternoons and weekends are spent roller-blading,
hiking and taking field trips to the zoo. And they always find the energy
to make a home-cooked breakfast every morning.
The Murphys’ story began when John and Jeanette were volunteering at
a home for mentally handicapped adults. Saddened by the experience, the
Murphys wished that they could do more to help. They came to believe that
a strong family environment might be beneficial for youngsters facing similar
handicaps. Later that same year, they were overjoyed to adopt Shannon. The
rest is family history.
Through the years, John and Jeanette have filled their home and their
children’s lives with respect, compassion and love. They have struggled
through sad times and the loss of several children, but have remained a
strong and caring family. To the Murphys, the rewards far outweigh the hardships.
The Murphys currently live in Atlanta and hope to add a new member to
their family very soon. Both John and Jeanette are 100 percent Irish and
are extremely proud of their heritage. John’s rich family history can be
traced back to Counties Wicklow and Wexford.
Brendan & Sean Tuohey
Playing for Peace
Not many people would use the words “basketball” and “world peace” in
the same sentence, especially in light of the recent NBA Players’ brawl.
But college hoops stars turned philanthropists Sean and Brendan Tuohey are
hoping to spread a message of unity and tolerance, one court at a time.
The Tuohey brothers are the masterminds behind Playing for Peace, a non-profit
organization that uses basketball to bring children of different racial
and religious backgrounds together in a safe, fun environment. Since the
league’s inaugural game in August 2002, Playing for Peace have coached integrated
teams of over 7,000 Protestant and Catholic children across Ireland.
“This game has taken their minds off the fact that they’re not supposed
to like each other,” explained Sean during a trip to Northern Ireland last
year.
Like many boys, Sean’s dream was to become a professional basketball
star, preferably as a shooting guard for the Utah Jazz. He continued to
pursue that dream after graduating from Catholic University in 1999, taking
his game across the pond to play in an Irish league. He also volunteered
to run clinics for a community youth league, which is when he was inspired
to use his love of the game to effect social change.
“I was pursuing my dream of playing professional basketball,” said Sean
in an interview last year. “And on the way, a new dream, an even bigger
dream, was put in front of me.”
Brother Brendan became involved soon after Playing for Peace was founded.
With Sean busy refereeing the kids in Ireland, Brendan devotes his time
to serving as the organization’s executive director. Dedicated to making
his brother’s vision a reality, Brendan has raised thousands of dollars
for the program’s operations, even securing the support of the NBA. “This
idea of children learning to play together is very simple, but it’s also
very powerful,” remarked Brendan at a recent fundraising event.
Having met with success in Ireland, Sean and Brendan hope to bring Playing
for Peace to other countries divided by race and religion. They recently
launched a program in South Africa and plan one day to expand into the Balkans
and the Middle East.
“This game has power,” said Sean. “What better time, when everyone’s
at war, to start Playing for Peace.”
The Tuohey brothers are fourth-generation Irish-Americans. Their paternal
great-grandparents hail from the town of Kilaloe in County Clare. Their
father Mark is a Washington D.C. attorney who is a member of the Friendly
Sons of St. Patrick and who served on the Patten Commission, which worked
to improve police services in Northern Ireland in the late 1990s. They also
have a younger brother, Devin,who has worked with Playing for Peace as a
coach.
Honey Shields
Caring for the Children
By Thomas Hauser
It’s a typical day in the children’s playroom at the Beth Israel Medical
Center in New York City. A two-year-old boy is playing with Thomas the Tank,
while a three-year-old gives Mr. Potato Head a makeover. There are a lot
of Barbie Dolls. Four-year-old girls love Barbie Dolls. An older child is
fashioning a beaded necklace.
From time to time, the kids wander over to embrace an attractive 53-year
old woman with a winsome smile. They want their “Honey hugs.”
Honey Shields was born and raised in the Bronx. All four of her grandparents
emigrated from Ireland and settled in the South Bronx, which was an Irish
neighborhood in the “Roaring Twenties.” Her maternal grandfather was a roofer;
her paternal grandfather worked for Con Ed. In the next generation, Honey’s
father was a court clerk in the New York State Supreme Court system and
her mother was the first civilian fingerprint technician to work for the
New York City Police Department.
“I love Ireland,” Honey says. “I’ve been there eight times. I always
wanted a cottage there, but my mother used to say, ‘Can’t you find something
on this side of the Atlantic?’ Then I went to Nova Scotia and it reminded
me of Ireland, so I bought a cottage there. The problem is, it takes as
long to get to Nova Scotia as it does to Ireland.”
Honey graduated from Lehman College and earned a master’s degree in applied
human development from Columbia University. At various times in her career,
she has worked with schizophrenic, autistic, deaf, and blind children. She
also served as Director of Therapeutic Recreation at both Goldwater Memorial
Hospital and the NYU Medical Center. For the past eight years, she has been
Director of Child Life at the Beth Israel Medical Center’s Institute of
Neurology and Neurosurgery.
Each year, Honey works with a thousand children, most of whom are suffering
from spinal-cord and brain tumors. Her responsibilities center on planning,
organizing, and implementing activities with three goals in mind: (1) reducing
stress for the children and their families by providing a child friendly
hospital environment; (2) creating opportunities for the children to play;
and (3) educating the children with regard to the medical procedures that
they’re about to undergo so they’ll feel less threatened by the process.
It’s a giving job that brings a great deal of satisfaction. The horrible
downside is that many of the children Honey interacts with die each year.
“The death of a child is the most tragic loss there is,” she says. “But
when you’re working with children who you know might die young, your time
with them becomes precious. Every day is an opportunity to help them live
life to the fullest and make that day meaningful and joyful for them.”
Over the years, Honey has been featured on Nightline and 20/20. Muhammad
Ali told her that she was blessed. When the Dalai Lama came to New York
in 1998 to explore ways of combining Eastern and Western medicine, he visited
the playroom at Beth Israel to meet with Honey and her children.
Now Honey is considering an offer to expand her work to the entire hospital
staff in addition to patients, the families of patients, and donors. “This
is a difficult time,” she notes. “Cutbacks in Medicare and Medicaid, regulations
imposed on us by outside agencies, and the rising costs of drugs have led
to financial constraints that make it harder for us to focus on our mission
of caring and compassion for patients. Staff members are feeling the stress
and we need to find ways to create a new community environment.”
Meanwhile, Honey remains passionate about her work. “One of the things
embedded in my Irish heritage,” she says, “is the need to celebrate life.
And when you’re working with children who are in life-threatening situations,
those celebrations become even more meaningful. Not everyone can find joy
in a hospital environment. But I feel like these children are mine, and
it’s an honor to work with them.”
Anyone wishing to donate toys or funds for the care of children at
the Beth Israel Medical Center should contact Honey Shields at 212-420-2429
or by e-mail at hshields@chpnet.org.
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