LEAP Year Event Announces Guests Of Honor

From LEAP: Henry Fernandez, Executive Director of LEAP (Leadership, Education & Athletics in Partnership), and Susan Kerley, Chair of the LEAP Year Event Committee, have announced the guests of honor for this year’s LEAP Year Event on Thursday, February 22, 2018.

According to Ms. Kerley, who is a member of the organizations Board of Directors, “These events have become a cherished New Haven tradition offering participants an evening of camaraderie, fine dining and inspiring conversation with extraordinary people, and a chance to make a difference in the lives of children and youth in New Haven.”

100% of proceeds from the sale of tickets for the LEAP Year Event go to support the on-going programs of LEAP, a New Haven-based academic and social enrichment program for children and youth ages 5 to 23 in the city’s high poverty neighborhoods.

The 2018 dinner guests of honor, hosted in intimate gatherings in private homes and elegant venues on February 22, are:

• Emily Bazelon, staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, discussing issues before the Supreme Court
• Steven Stoll, author of Ramp Hollow, a provocative account of Appalachia
• Kica Matos, director of immigrant rights and racial justice at the Center for Community Change in Washington, DC
• Yale law professor James Forman Jr. discussing his experience teaching behind prison walls
• Tina Tchen, a founding member of Time’s Up, the initiative to fight sexual harassment
• pianist/entertainer Andrew Rubenoff playing from the American songbook
• poet Claudia Rankine, author of the best-selling Citizen: An American Lyric
• comedy writer Sophia Farrar Lear, writer on the new CBS comedy “Living Biblically,” premiering in February
• Yale political science professor Jacob S. Hacker discusses how our political system affects the well-being and potential of Americans
• dancer Eiko Otake discusses her 40+ year career and her latest work exploring the fragility of the human body
• writer and cultural anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson discusses how older adults can protect the planet for today’s children
• Leon V. Sigal, director of the Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project at the Social Science Research Council with thoughts on nuclear diplomacy
• Lisa Miller, author of The Spiritual Child, on the science and power of spirituality
• Akhil Reed Amar, one of America’s five most-cited legal scholars under age 60
• William S. Reese whose company is one of the foremost firms specializing in rare books and manuscripts on travel, exploration and Americana
• Mark Oppenheimer, co-host of the popular weekly podcast “Unorthodox”
• Ross Douthat, the youngest op-ed columnist in the history of The New York Times
• Mary Pearl, described by Newsweek as a leading biologist who has “spearheaded the development of ‘conservation medicine’”
• Timothy Snyder, the Levin Professor of History at Yale and author of On Tyranny, speaks about our new political order
• Ben A. Solnit, vice president of the ACLU of Connecticut, on issues his organization has been tackling
• Murry Moss and Franklin Getchell who run the Moss Bureau, a design consultancy for corporations, manufacturers and individuals
• Haroon K. Ullah, an award-winning author and diplomat, focusing on digital strategy and countering violent extremism
• photographer Marjorie Gillette Wolfe discusses and displays her work, which often centers on structures and landscapes
• Hilary Matfess, author of Women and the War on Boko Haram
• Richard O. Prum, author of The Evolution of Beauty, named one of 2017’s top 10 books by The New York Times, on the plumages, songs and displays of birds.

Three of 2018’s LEAP Year Events invite guests to unique venues:

• a special private tour of the Yale Art Gallery led by Jock Reynolds, the gallery’s director, and Pamela Franks, senior deputy director and curator of modern and contemporary art, followed by dinner at the Union League Café
• a tour of the private painting conservation studio at the Yale Center for British Art with chief conservator Mark Aronson followed by dinner at Zinc Restaurant
• a tour of one of Yale’s new colleges introducing the secrets of the building and stories of its namesake, Benjamin Franklin, hosted by historian Rebecca Tannenbaum and scientist Charles Bailyn, head of Benjamin Franklin College.

Three LEAP Year Events will take place two nights later, on Saturday, February 24:

• Poet, lawyer and activist Reginald Dwayne Betts speaking about the relationship between the arts and activism
• Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro discussing protecting the social safety net for middle-class families and children
• Jason Stanley whose upcoming book How Fascism Works explains the propaganda we now encounter from the nationalist far right in the U.S. and abroad.

The 2018 LEAP Year Event will begin with a cocktail reception, book signing and an opportunity to hear from LEAP staff and counselors beginning at 5pm at the Hopkins School in New Haven. At 7pm, guests will depart for the individual dinners which start at 7:30pm. Long-time LEAP supporters, Shelley and Gordon Geballe, will be honored by the LEAP staff and board during the reception at Hopkins.

LEAP Year Event dinners fill quickly so early reservations are recommended. Tickets may be purchased online at www.leapforkids.org/LYE. The deadline for dinner reservations is February 12, 2018. Tickets for the reception followed by dinner are $150 per ticket. Tickets for the reception-only are $50. For additional information contact the LEAP Development Office, 203.773.0770 or amindell@leapforkids.org.

Images courtesy of LEAP