By Geoffrey Wertime, Staff Writer
A local nonprofit organization was recognized in New York on Sept. 23, receiving an award from former President Bill Clinton and political commentator and online journalist Arianna Huffington on behalf of the Clinton Global Initiative.
The F.I.S.H. Foundation, based in Plainsboro, was one of five CGI members recognized that morning for their work in education. The foundation has provided over $600,000 in funding to the Mar Elias High School in Ibillin, Israel, and has recently pledged to give it another $100,000 in October to help upgrade its technology.
”It was a fascinating experience in that there were so many international leaders, political leaders as well as corporate and nonprofit and non-governmental people,” said the Rev. Dr. Kathy Nelson, who joined the F.I.S.H. foundation as president after serving as the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church at Dayton in South Brunswick for over 20 years.
”It’s a wonderful opportunity for making connections for ways in which we can do our work together for the benefit of others around the country and across the globe,” she said of the initiative’s meeting.
As for standing on stage next to President Clinton and Ms. Huffington, she said, “It was pretty exciting, I must say.”
South Brunswick resident Dorothy Hanle started the foundation in 2007 after the Rev. Nelson gave a sermon on the importance of helping others. Ms. Hanle owned Dayton Auto Group with her husband for nearly 40 years, the Rev. Nelson said, and “upon her decision to retire she decided to take her assets and create this foundation.”
”She heard me give a sermon on the fact that God gives us gifts not only for our own wellbeing but for the common good and that was what led her in her decision at retirement to create a foundation,” she said. “Then she decided to try to ask me if I’d consider taking on the responsibility of shaping the life of the foundation, and that’s how I ended up becoming president. It’s my current full-time ministry.”
Mar Elias High School was founded by a Christian archbishop, Elias Chacour, in 1982 to address the achievement gap between Jewish and Arab students. The school now has 1,200 students in kindergarten through 12th grade who come from all over northern Israel, and the school is also opening a college.
The new funding from F.I.S.H. will go toward upgrading existing programs and adding new ones in biotechnology, physics, and computers. The Rev. Nelson said those improvements “will help young people do better on the Israeli standardized exam, and hopefully better their chance at admittance into colleges or their potential for working.”
”We have a very strong feeling that right now, schools like this one in Ibillin are the hope for tomorrow’s peace in the Middle East,” the Rev. Nelson said. “We wanted to bring attention to the fact that one very positive way of helping to try to bring about peace in world is to try to create that with young people.”
For more information on the F.I.S.H. Foundation, visit www.fishfoundationinc.org.
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