THE BUZZ: On Saturday, March 30th, 2013, I attended the 2013 Women of Distinction Spirit Awards Luncheon hosted by the Greater New York Chapter of The Links. It was held at Pier Sixty at Chelsea Piers. The honorees this year included Jo Ann Jenkins, COO of AARP and President of the AARP Foundation and Dr. Lorraine Madry, Senior Program Director for Domestic Violence Services, Urban Women’s Retreat. The event had a wonderful turnout and was capped off by a Spring fashion show put together by Laurita Shields.

It was nice to see some people I’ve worked with in the past at speaking events such as Gerri Warren-Merrick, President or the Greater New York Chapter of The Links, Hazel Dukes, President of the NAACP National Board of Directors, Aletha Maybank, MD, MPH, Assistant Commissioner of the New York City Department of Health, Mrs. Patricia Butts, First Lady of Abyssinian Baptist Church, and Vickie Powell, MS, RPh, Pharmacy Director at New York-Presbyterian Hospital and past President of the New York State Council of Health-system Pharmacists.

I was sitting at the American Heart Association table with much thanks to friend and colleague Sherri Holman, Director of Multicultural Initiatives at AHA. I also got a chance to thank Congressman Charles Rangel again for his support of me as a Young Global Leader for the World Economic Forum. He wrote a recommendation letter during my nomination process in 2008/2009.

Established in 1946, The Links, Incorporated, is one of the nation’s oldest and largest volunteer service organizations of women who, linked in friendship, are committed to enriching, sustaining and ensuring the culture and economic survival of African-Americans and persons of African descent. It consists of nearly 12,000 professional women of color in 272 chapters located in 42 states, the District of Columbia and the Bahamas.

Contributed by Teresa Kay-Aba Kennedy, Ph.D., MBA.

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