By Bettie Witherspoon
Cari Fais has been selected as Better Beginnings’ Alumna of the year. The Award will be presented at the Mayors’ Shining Star Charity Ball on April 30. She will also be honored at Better Beginnings’ 2011 Graduation in June in Hightstown.
Cari’s achievements are exceeded only by her compassion for and service to others. Her most recent vacation, for example, was spent volunteering at a center for malnourished children at Casa Jackson, Antigua, Guatemala.
While in high school, Cari was also employed as a Junior Counselor at Better Beginnings. Her mother, Marsha Fais Goldblatt, set the model for volunteering as a long-time member of the Better Beginnings Board of Directors.
Cari is remembered as a young student and as a staff member as kind, compassionate, intelligent and highly motivated. She loved singing her class song, “We are the world, we are the children.” She was invariably in good spirits and a joy to be around.
Presently employed as attorney by Friedman Kaplan Seiler & Adelman LLP, her former employment includes Womanspace, Inc. as Bilingual Counselor/Advocate; Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office as Victim/Witness Advocate; ACLU Women’s Rights Project as Legal Intern; United States Attorney’s Office, S.D.N.Y. as Legal Intern; Debevoise & Plimpton LLP as Litigation Associate/Summer Associate; and United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit as Law Clerk to the Honorable Michael A. Chagares.
She graduated from Columbia Law School with Honors as a Harlan Fiska Stone Scholar; activities included Notes Editor, Columbia Law Review/a Law Student Association, and Reach Assistant to Professor Carol Sanger. She also attended La Universidad Niacional, Herdia, Costa Rica and received her B.A. from George Washington University as a Phi Beta Kappa. Activities included Human Rights Educator, Cardozo Senior High School.
At Hightstown High School, Cari received The Latina Women’s Council of Mercer Inc., President’s Award for Educational Excellence, George Foster Dennis Current Events Award, and was The George Washington University Presidential Scholar, and Edward J. Bloustein Distinguished Scholar.
Community service includes Fair Housing Justice Center, New York 8/2006-12/2006, pro bono legal services for clients facing housing discrimination; Mental Hygiene Legal Services, New York, 6/2006, representing hospitalized patient in civil commitment hearing; Income Tax Assistance Program, East Windsor, NJ 2003-2005, translator and assisting low-income clients filing income tax returns; Latina Women’s Council of Mercer County, East Windsor, NJ 2/2004-8/2005, board member, planning annual Youth Conference, fundraisers, and participating in the Scholarship Committee; Legal Momentum (NOW Legal Defense) Washington, DC 1/2002-5/2002 , Legislative Assistant, researching state and national legislation and its impact on gender issues, including Victims Economic Security and Safety Act and TANF Reauthorization, and organizing events on Capitol Hill; Red de Mujeres para el Desarrollo (Women’s Development Network) in San Jose, Costa Rica 1/2001-5/2001 assisting in an organization focused on gender development and economic justice with translation and administrative tasks; Human Rights Service Corps, Amnesty International, Washington, DC 9/1999-5/2000, where as a Human Rights Educator, she designed and taught two human rights courses at an under-resourced high school, emphasizing economic justice, UN Conventions, immigrant’s rights, and gender issues.

