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Interfaith Center
for
Peace and Justice

P.O. Box 3134
Gettysburg, PA 17325

(717) 334-0752

 

The Interfaith Center for Peace and Justice awards the Peacemaker of the Year and Lifetime of Peacemaking Awards to local residents who have helped significantly in making us a more just and peaceful community. A ceremony celebrating the recipicients is held every year at the Adams County Public Library, Gettysburg Branch. Each recipient receives a plaque, and materials (books, videos, etc.) are given to the Adams County Public library in honor of the recipients.

2011 Peacemaker Awards

On April 18, 2011, awarded three Peacemaker Awards in a ceremony at the Adams County Public Library in Gettysburg. Elaine Jones received a special Founder's Award in honor of ICPJ's 25th anniversary, Dr. David Crowner received the Lifetime of Peacemaking Awards, and Ron and Jill Baird received the Peacemaker of the Year award. Each award includes the donation of $150 worth of books to the Adams County Library in the name of the award winner.

Elaine Jones, Founder's Award winner
In 1985, Elaine Jones, who had been active in the Nuclear Freeze movement, initiated a series of meetings to establish a permanent peace center in the community.  The aim, she said, “was to make certain that peace concerns remained front and center in our county no matter what the political climate was.”  Out of these meetings grew the Interfaith Center for Peace and Justice, which has now been a presence in our community for more than a quarter century.  Elaine served as the Center’s first President, but then shifted her center of activity to Washington, DC, where between 1987 and 2003 she served with a number of non-profits, including the Better World Society, 20/20 Vision, the League of Conservation Voters (of which she was Vice President), the Center for Community Change, the Center for Policy Alternatives, and the Landmine Survivors Network. “Elaine is currently retired,” says her husband, Bill Jones, “which means that she only spends six or seven hours a day working at fixing a difficult world.”  She is Vice President of the Upper Adams School Board, and Founder and Chair of Gettysburg Area Democracy for America.

Click here to read the citation speech for Elaine Jones by Will Lane.
Click here to read the list of materials donated to the library in honor of Elaine Jones.

Dr. David Crowner, Lifetime of Peacemaking Award Winner
David Crowner retired from Gettysburg College in 2001 after teaching German there since 1967.  He has been involved in social and political activity since his participation as a student in the 1960s civil rights movement.  Locally, he is a founding member of Project Gettysburg-León.  He was a participant in first group that went from Adams County to Nicaragua.  Over the more than 25 years of PGL, he has served as its secretary, treasurer, vice-president and president, and has traveled to León several times.  He is currently helping initiate a program through which individuals can sponsor specific projects that appeal to their interests.  He has been active in many local organizations, including the World Outreach Committee of St. James Lutheran Church, the YWCA, and the Gettysburg Area American Youth Soccer Organization.  In January of 2010, he and his wife, Pat, served in Tanzania at a primary school for children with physical disabilities.

Click here to read the list of materials donated to the library in honor of Dr. Crowner.

Ron and Jill Baird, Peacemaker of the Year Award winner
Ron and Jill Baird, long-time residents of Littlestown, received the Peacemaker of the Year Award in honor of their work in resolving a controversy regarding the location of the Littlestown Library (a branch of the Adams County Library).  Some years ago, the Littlestown Borough Council sold the borough’s community building, which had housed the Library among other agencies, to the Alpha Fire Company.  The Fire Company proposed to demolish the building in order to build a new fire station.  Much contestation ensued, until the Bairds stepped forward and donated a building at 232 N. Queen St., which they had purchased explicitly to house the Library.  Subsequently, the Bairds took the lead in raising funds and securing donations of goods and services for the new building.  By giving of their own resources, they helped the community pull together in support of the new Library.

Materials donated to the library in honor of the award recipients

Click on the titles for more information about the selections (e.g., reviews, excerpts, etc.) from amazon.com

In honor of Elaine Jones, 2011 Founder's Award Winner:

Rebooting the American Dream: 11 Ways to Rebuild our Country, by Thom Hartmann.
Middle Church: Reclaiming the Moral Values of the Faithful Majority from the Religious Right, by Robert Edgar.
Moyers on America: A Journalist and his Times, by Bill Moyers.
Moyers on Democracy, by Bill Moyers.
Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think, by George Lakoff.
Unequal Protection: How Corporations Became "People" - and How You Can Fight Backby Thom Hartmann.

In honor of Dr. David Crowner, 2011 Lifetime of Peacemaking Award Winner

Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, by Eric Metaxas.
Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery, by Eric Metaxas.
Stones into Schools: Promoting Peace with Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, by Greg Mortenson.
Wangari’s Trees of Peace: A True Story from Africa, by Jeanette Winter.
Somewhere Today: A Book of Peace, by Shelly Moore Thomas and Eric Futran.

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Previous recipients
2010 Jan and Jerry Altoff, Mary Furlong, and Bill Collinge
2009 Dr. Paula Olinger and Jan Guillory
2008 Rev. Joyce Shutt and the Watershed Alliance of Adams County
2007 Karl Mattson and Susan Star Paddock
2006 Sam Mudd and Suse Greenstone
2005 Herman Stuempfle and Rajmohan Ramanathapillai
2004 Lou and Patricia Hammann
2003 Nancy Forgang
2002 Ernie Simpson
2001 Dick and Elizabeth Scott
2000 Jane and Marty Malone
1999 Nancy Whitman
1998 Father Joseph C. Hilbert
1997 Marjorie Smith
1996 Jean Odom
1995 Will Lane and Jan Powers

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Last updated July 26, 2011

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