Prospect AME capital campaign banquet seeks sponsors
The members of Prospect African Methodist Episcopal Church at 109 Adams St., Georgetown, have embarked on an ambitious journey to restore their building. Prospect has been a part of the Georgetown community since the 1830s, providing educational and spiritual training.
Prospect has launched a capital campaign with a goal of raising $170,000 to address structural and foundation issues, add a handicapped-accessible bathroom, install an HVAC system and upgrade the electrical system.
This is a huge undertaking for the small congregation. Members are prayerful that the community will partner with them to accomplish this goal.
A banquet fundraiser will be held at 4 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 24, at Modern Maturity Center in Dover.
The keynote speaker will be Bryan A. Stevenson, Esq., a world-renowned civil rights attorney, former member of Prospect AME Church and a native of Milton.
Organizers are seeking sponsors and advertisers for the souvenir journal.
Tickets are $60 per person, and must be purchased by Tuesday, Aug. 20. No tickets will be sold at the door.
Checks may be made payable to Prospect AME Church and mailed to Prospect AME Church, P.O. Box 223, Georgetown, DE 19947.
Stevenson was born Nov. 14, 1959, in Milton where he attended the local "colored" school before the Cape Henlopen School District was integrated. He attended Milton Elementary and Junior High School. In 1977, he graduated at the top of his class at Cape Henlopen High School. He went on to earn a bachelor of arts degree in philosophy from Eastern University in St. David, Pa., in 1981.
In 1985, Stevenson received his master of arts degree in public policy from Harvard University's Kennedy School and his juris doctor degree from Harvard Law School. He worked as an intern at the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta.
Stevenson is the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Ala.
He has earned wide acclaim as a public-interest lawyer who has dedicated his career to helping the poor, the incarcerated and the condemned. Under his leadership, EJI has won major legal challenges eliminating excessive and unfair sentencing, exonerating innocent death row prisoners, confronting abuse of the incarcerated and the mentally ill, and aiding children prosecuted as adults.
Stevenson has successfully argued several cases in the United States Supreme Court. He recently won a historic ruling that mandatory life-without-parole sentences for all children 17 or younger are unconstitutional.
Stevenson and his staff have won reversals, relief or release for more than 125 wrongly condemned prisoners on death row.
He has initiated major new anti-poverty and anti-discrimination efforts that challenge the legacy of racial inequality in America, including major projects to educate communities about slavery, lynching and racial segregation.
He also is a professor of law at the New York University School of Law.
For his work fighting poverty and challenging racial discrimination in the criminal justice system, Stevenson has won numerous awards including the prestigious MacArthur Foundation fellowship; the National Medal of Liberty from the American Civil Liberties Union, for which he was nominated by U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Stevens; the Public Interest Lawyer of the Year Award by the National Association of Public Interest Lawyers; and the Olaf Palme Prize in Stockholm, Sweden for international human rights. The American Bar Association has honored Stevenson with its John Minor Public Service and Professionalism Award. Stevenson has received 29 honorary doctoral degrees from universities including Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Oxford.
He is the author of the critically acclaimed New York Times bestseller, “Just Mercy.” The book has merited honors including the Carnegie Medal from the American Library Association for the best nonfiction book of 2014 and a 2015 NAACP Image Award.
For more information on sponsorship or advertising, or to donate, call 302-745-4127 or 302-249-3588.
