NAACP Freedom Fund Banquet set for Sept. 20

The Lower Sussex NAACP will host its 16th Annual Freedom Fund Banquet at 4 p.m., Saturday, Sept. 20, at Grace United Methodist Church Hall, King and Market streets, Georgetown. This year’s theme, 50 Years...We've Come This Far...By Faith, commemorated July 2, is the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Movement.

The Lower Sussex NAACP always honors individuals in the community who are continuously giving of themselves for the benefit of others. This year’s honorees are The Buffalo Soldiers, Eugene Abbott, Letitia Sturgis, Betty Jean Harmon and Brittany Adkins Hazzard.

All tickets are $30 per person in advance and $35 per person at the door. To purchase tickets contact Helen LaClair at 302-245-1348 or email requests to jehovahrohi@aol.com. Make checks payable to Lower Sussex NAACP.

The keynote speaker is the Rev. A. Iona Smith Nze, MDiv, from Mt. Zion AME Church in Ellendale. Smith Nze is an Itinerant Elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, ordained in 2006 by Bishop Richard Franklin Norris. She has served three of the seven annual conferences of the First Episcopal District and was appointed in May 2012 to the pastoral charge of Mt. Zion AME Church.

During her first 180 days, Smith Nze engaged the officers and members of Mt. Zion in the development of a vision for the church, and the renewal of relationships with local and elected officials; launched the Be Ever-Ready Campaign, an initiative that encourages on-the-job training for officers and members, and their performance of worship tasks without advance notice. Renewed community relationships led to the successful collaboration between Mt. Zion and the Southern Grille Restaurant for the inaugural Thanksgiving Day dinner which 400 guests enjoyed.  Smith Nze has a vision for Mt. Zion that includes a Debt-Free in Three Campaign and the expansion of the Mt. Zion campus.

Smith Nze assumed her first pastoral charge in the western New York Annual Conference. There, she became the first female pastor in the 56-year history of DeLaine Waring AME Church in Buffalo, N.Y., and successfully led the congregation through a quarter-million-dollar renovation and restoration project. She left the congregation debt free. As a member of the WNY Conference, Smith Nze was a member of the Finance Committee as an intern for the Committee on Ministerial Orders and the Judicial Committee. She was the director of public relations and treasurer of Women in Ministry.

As a member of the Buffalo religious community, Smith Nze served as the president of the African Methodist Ministers' Alliance, leading the interests of clergy and lay members in the AME, AMEZ, CME AND UMC churches.

Smith Nze received her call to ministry in the New England Annual Conference. She was licensed to preach at St. Paul AME Church in Cambridge, Mass., and ordained an Itinerant Deacon under the Rev. Dr. LeRoy Attles Sr. She served as an associate minister while obtaining her master of divinity degree from Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, and served as chaplain to Women in Ministry for the Boston-Hartford District for four years. She was also involved with the Massachusetts Council of Churches.

Smith Nze then accepted a two-year post as pastoral resident of the Transition-Into-Ministry program at the Historic Charles Street AME Church, one of a national chain of Lilly Foundation-funded programs. She was ordained an Itinerant Elder while at Charles Street and spent one year as a pastor scholar at Boston University.

Smith Nze brings significant experience to her ministry: consultant to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; directorships within the public and private nonprofit sectors; grant making and grant management experience; local and national board memberships; independent school leadership and numerous awards. She attended Spelman College and Suffolk University.