BY JOYCE BLAY
Staff Writer
LAKEWOOD — The value of an education provides food for thought.
Guests at the local NAACP’s 32nd annual Freedom Fund Banquet will be able to digest that idea — literally — when noted educator Donald L. Clark discusses the importance of an education on June 17. The banquet will be held from 7-11 p.m. at the Eagle Ridge Golf Club in Lakewood.
Clark is the retired former director of the Bureau of Curriculum and Academic Services with the Pennsyl-vania Department of Education.
The Ocean County-Lakewood branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) sponsors the annual fund-raiser to help send deserving minority youths to college, according to Audrey Wise, chair of the banquet’s organizing committee.
She said the banquet is also held “to bring dynamic speakers to the youth of the community who can raise their awareness of the importance of an education and its rewards.
“Dr. Clark believes in empowering minority youth through education and community values. He will be delivering a powerful vision that we hope the youth of today will embrace.”
Wise said Clark’s speech will also bring past and present full circle.
“In order to go forward, we need to know our past,” Wise said. “By looking back, we become empowered spiritually, academically and culturally through the achievements of the civil rights struggle.
“We want the younger generation to know their past so they can achieve the American dream for which prior generations worked so hard.”
She said the NAACP’s goal is to encourage other minority youths to attend an institution of higher learning even if they did not receive a scholarship.
Three scholarships will be awarded to local youths at this year’s NAACP banquet, said Wise. Trevor Brown, 18, Nnenna Ugwuala, 17, and Erin Hutch-erson, 17, all seniors at Lakewood High School, will each receive a scholarship.
Wise said Theodore Gooding, former Lakewood mayor Marta Harrison and corporate recipient T&M Associates will each receive a community service award.
Former NAACP president James Waters will be recognized for his service with the past president award.
Admission is $55 per person for adults and $25 per person for students and includes dinner as well as a year’s membership in the Ocean County-Lakewood branch of the NAACP.
For further information call Wise at (732) 367-5125 or NAACP President Warren Sherard at (732) 606-2044.