Womanspace Barbara Boggs Sigmund Award goes to Star Jones
By: Christian Kirkpatrick
“Domestic violence destroys the most important thing we have…strong and healthy families,” said David A. Buck.
The chairman of this year’s Barbara Boggs Sigmund Award ceremony spoke to supporters of Womanspace Tuesday night at Pretty Brook Farm on the Great Road in Princeton.
Womanspace gives the award each year in honor of the former mayor of Princeton Borough who co-founded the organization in 1977. Because the late Ms. Sigmund believed that “strength is born of family love and support,” she fought for abused women, sometimes bringing them “into her own home,” remembered Patricia M. Hart, the organization’s executive director.
Paul Sigmund, widower of Barbara Boggs Sigmund and a professor at Princeton University, presented this year’s award to Star Jones. A former Brooklyn prosecutor and NBC network news reporter, Ms. Jones is a co-host of the Emmy-award winning public affairs show, “The View.”
Ms. Jones’ remarks focused on the importance of strong families and neighborhoods and of taking personal responsibility for the welfare of others. “You have to bring something to the table besides your appetite,” she quipped, because “life and success are really about helping someone else live and someone else succeed.”
She credits her parents and community for making her a success. Ms. Jones’ parents provided discipline and direction to the Trenton native. She dismissed the current fashion of parents trying to be buddies with their children.
“Because they were my parents then, they are my friends now,” she said. “My parents also taught me to run my mouth,” she claimed. A teacher once told the outspoken Ms. Jones, “don’t rock the boat.” But her mother advised, “if you’re not in the boat, turn it over!”
Ms. Jones is thankful for the safe neighborhood in which she grew up, especially “the nosy neighbors” who kept an eye on things. They made sure the local kids behaved themselves, and because of them she always knew she was protected.
As an author (“You Have to Stand for Something or You’ll Fall for Anything,” Bantam Books, 1998) and a television personality, Ms. Jones has become a sort of nosy neighbor herself, publicizing injustices and speaking up for what she values.
“I have no tolerance for violence against women and children,” she thundered. And the estimated crowd of 400 applauded, as it had many times throughout the speech.
She encouraged these listeners to volunteer for Womanspace, promising that they would find satisfaction by “lending a helping hand, shouldering someone else’s load,” for “we make a living by what we make,” she concluded. “We make a life by what we do.”
For more information about Womanspace, call (609) 394-0136.