The new Sandra Starr Foundation--established to support "the improvement of community life and development of progressive community leadership in the Princeton-Mercer County area"--announced on Dec. 9, 1998 its inaugural agenda: two annual conferences; an awards program; a publication; and a website.
The Foundation's first conference,
"Beyond the Sleepy College Town: The Future of the Greater Princeton Community,"
will be held on the morning of April 24, 1999 --- Princeton's Communiversity
Day-- and will address the long-term social and economic trends affecting
the Princeton-Mercer area over the next 25 years. The conference will be
open to the public.
A second event, to be held in the late
fall 1999, will be a workshop on community issues and leadership skills
for people serving in public office or active in community organizations
in the Princeton-Mercer area.
The Sandra Starr Awards for Community Leadership will recognize people under age 40 who have contributed significantly to public life and community improvement in the Princeton-Mercer area. One of the awards, not limited by age, will be for contributions to planning, design, and the environment and will honor Margen Penick, who for decades played a prominent leadership role in Princeton on those issues. Ms. Penick, a mentor and close friend of Ms. Starr, died only days before she did.
The publication series will include studies of issues affecting
the Princeton-Mercer area. The website, highlighting the Foundation's work,
can be accessed at http://epn.org/ssf.html.
The Foundation was created in honor
of Sandra Starr, a member of the Princeton Borough Council, who died at
age 44 on Oct. 1, 1998. It has received nearly 100 contributions amounting
to more than $10,000 from Princeton area residents, from organizations
with which Ms. Starr worked, and from friends in Davis, California--the
town where she grew up. In addition, her husband Paul Starr has made
an initial commitment to the Foundation of $100,000 over five years. To
supplement these funds, the Foundation also will apply for grants from
other organizations to support specific projects.
The Foundation's board includes Paul
Starr, who serves as president; Ingrid Reed, vice president; Elyse Pivnick,
treasurer; Louise Schiller, secretary; and Pam Hersh, assistant secretary.
One of Ms. Starr's hopes for the foundation
was that it would encourage more people in their twenties and thirties
to become involved in community leadership. "You have to do three things,"
the Foundation's mission statement quotes the folksinger Pete Seeger as
saying recently. "You have to do your job. You have to think about how
to do your job better. And you have to prepare someone to do your job when
you can no longer do it." The statement continues: "The Sandra Starr Foundation
will not do the job of local governments, commissions, and nonprofit community
institutions, but it will try to help them think about how to do their
job better and to develop new leaders who can carry on their work in the
future."
Donations to the Sandra Starr Foundation may be sent to the Law Offices of Katherine Benesch, 993 Lenox Drive, Suite 200, Lawrenceville, NJ 08648.
For more information about the Foundation, please contact Paul Starr at (609) 924-6992, e-mail starr@princeton.edu.