1304 North Rodney Street
Wilmington DE 19806
www.depaceminterris.org
Phone (302)656-2721 Fax (302)656-2730
e-mail: depaceminterris@gmail.com
The Pacem in Terris 45th Annual Dinner, to be held at 6:00 p.m. on Thursday, October 18, 2012, in Community Hall at Westminster Church, will celebrate the retirement on December 31, 2012 of our long-time and much beloved Executive Director, Sally Milbury-Steen. In fact, Sally will be our featured speaker, and the title of her talk is “In Praise of Pacem: Reflections, Challenges and Appreciations.” There are not enough words to describe all the ways Sally has successfully guided Pacem in Terris with profound wisdom and deep love for the last 27 years. Pacem in Terris is the oldest and largest interfaith global peace and justice education and action organization on the Delmarva Peninsula, thanks largely to Sally’s leadership. Its current programs include: 1) international peace (Peaceseekers; Ulster Project Delaware); 2) peace at home (Pacem in Vita; Peaceable Classroom; Healing Our Nation; Wilmington in Transition -- Local, Sustainable Living); and 3) restorative justice (Pardons Project; Delaware Citizens Opposed to the Death Penalty; Dance Project at Baylor Women's Correctional Institution).
At Pacem in Terris, Sally works for peace and reconciliation through the Ulster Project Delaware, which brings Northern Irish Catholic and Protestant teens to the Wilmington area during the month of July, and the PeaceSeekers program which is fighting drone warfare, seeking an end to the war in Afghanistan, and working for world peace.
In the area of peace at home, she is involved with the dismantling racism program, Healing Our Nation; Wilmington in Transition, a community-based approach to local, sustainable living; conflict resolution for elementary school classrooms through Creating the Peaceable Classroom and for middle – high school students through the Pacem in Vita project; and she is helping to start a Peace & Justice Project for 20 - 40 year-olds. She participates in Pacem's restorative justice efforts: Delaware Citizens Opposed to the Death Penalty and the Pardons Project, which helps individuals prepare themselves to go before the Board of Pardons. The Pardons Project grew out of a successful effort to restore the vote to former felons in Delaware in which Pacem in Terris worked in partnership with the Delaware Center for Justice, the A. Philip Randolph Institute, and other community groups. A third restorative justice project is the Dance Project, which brings a professional dance instructor/performer and a drummer to the Baylor Women’s Correctional Institution for a week of residency every year. Through dance instruction and dance therapy, the women move to personal transformation. In addition to its other activities, Pacem in Terris publishes a newsletter, Delmarva PEACEWORK, five times a year.
As Director of Pacem in Terris, Sally serves as a consultant to the Advocacy Resource Team of the Peninsula Conference of the United Methodist Church and to the peacemaking activities of the New Castle Presbytery. From1993 - 1999 she was the Co-Clerk of the Friends Peace Committee of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends. She is a member and Co-Clerk of Newark, DE, Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends. In 1997, she and Lillian Jones-Chisholm took ninety hours of training from Rita Starr of the Healing Our Nation Institute in Evanston, IL, to become qualified to co-facilitate Healing the Hurts of Racism workshops through the Healing Our Nation program. As part of her work at Pacem in Terris, she has traveled to the former Soviet Union, Northern Ireland, and El Salvador. She was a past member of the Wilmington Civil Rights Commission.
During her 27 years at Pacem, Sally says she has felt honored and privileged to work with so many wonderful people on a wide variety of projects that help make the world a little more peaceful and just. She notes that we all love Pacem and have empowered one another to renew our hope and work for peace and justice, no matter what the challenges. Because of her deep love for Pacem she welcomes the changes and new directions the new Executive Director, Medard Gabel, will bring, and looks forward to working supportively with him.
A native Delawarean, Sally served in the Peace Corps in Cameroun, West Africa, from 1965-1967 and later taught as a Senior Fulbright Lecturer at the National University of Gabon in Central Africa from 1975-1977. She holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana and her dissertation was later published as the book, African and European Stereotypes in Twentieth-Century Fiction. She is married to John Milbury-Steen, a former Peace Corps volunteer in Liberia and teacher in Gabon, and their adult daughter, Blythe, continues the family international tradition by living and teaching in Paris.
Please join us for this memorable evening. We do not want to give away all the things that will take place at the dinner (some will be surprises for Sally!), but we can say that there will be music; we will enjoy the wonderful music of Aliza Appel and the African drumming of Kamau. The dinner will be catered by Chef Mark Saunders and the Culinary School of the Food Bank of Delaware. This year’s menu will be roasted pumpkin soup, cous cous and dried fruit salad, Caesar Salad, Greek Salad, Pesto Pasta Salad, chickpea with roasted vegetable salad, Waldorf salad, broiled crab cakes, rice pilaf, sautéed green beans with mushrooms, baked ziti, rolls & butter, tea & coffee, and assorted dessert trays.
At the dinner, we will honor several unsung but highly deserving persons who have dedicated themselves to making the world a better place. It is our way of training the spotlight on champions of peace and justice who have never sought the limelight for themselves.
Sally has told us that the best farewell gift we could give her is to ensure the continued vitality of Pacem in Terris. We know that nothing would delight her more than for people to donate to Pacem in her honor in order to raise needed funds to continue the work of Pacem in Terris as it enters a new chapter in its remarkable history. To accommodate her wish, we have created the Celebrate Sally Fund and invite you to contribute to it. A generous group of anonymous donors has promised to match each contribution made between August 25, 2012 and midnight October 18, 2012, dollar for dollar! Please be as generous as you can, since your donation will be doubled and will go twice as far in helping fund our efforts for peace and justice.
The cost of the 2012 Annual Dinner is $25/person. To make a dinner reservation or for more information, please call the Pacem in Terris office at 302-656-2721 and please send your checks to Delaware Pacem in Terris, 1304 North Rodney Street, Wilmington, DE 19806. The deadline for reservations is October 15, 2012. Persons who wish to attend the lecture only, may do so by showing up at 7:45 pm for free.
Mary Starkweather-White is the Coordinator of the Pardons Project and is a member of the 2012 Annual Dinner Committee.