Congratulations to our 2nd Annual Diva Visionary Award winner, Kristina Leonardi!
Heartfelt congratulations to Kristina Leonardi, founder of The Women's Mosaic, a nonprofit dedicated to providing,
"education, inspiration and motivation for women to rise up and rock the world!" Very powerful words from a very powerful Diva Visionary.
And congratulations to YOU, Diva Nation. Without your continued support and participation, we might never have met Kristina and our other finalists.
Our judges faced a mighty challenge as they carefully considered each candidates' merits. Though Kristina ultimately reigns supreme, we strongly believe
that everyone who joined us on our quest for female excellence should jump up and celebrate. Viva Visionary Divas!
Sponsored by: &
Kristina Leonardi, Founder, The Women's Mosaic
Now is the time for women to come together to rise up and rock the world! I have dedicated the last six years of my life to making that statement a reality by founding The Women's Mosaic (www.thewomensmosaic.org), a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that educates, inspires and motivates women to express their full potential in all areas of life.
Through providing a variety of unique educational programs, TWM seeks to create positive social change on personal, local and global levels by helping women embrace who they are and what they can do with their lives. Our programs offer relaxed, stimulating, supportive environments that enable women to reach across borders and cultures, allowing them to recognize, refine and reactivate their individual and collective power and place in the world. We’ve offered over 80 unique programs for more than 2000 women to learn more about themselves and the world around them. We have dispelled prejudices and stereotypes of race and religion, and have expanded women’s horizons through a variety of multicultural and personal growth events – from panel discussions to film screenings and ethnic dinners and workshops, thus allowing women to interact and connect with each other in informal yet structured ways and expanding their horizons both locally and globally, and generating awareness about women’s issues both here and abroad.
I have done some extensive travelling in the past, but since starting the organization it has been challenging on all levels to get away anywhere, as I have poured my heart, soul and finances into the organization. I truly believe that uniting and empowering women is the only way to change the world and am sincerely and passionately doing my part to make that happen.
Nathasha Alvarez is the perfect person for your diva contest. Her friends call her the little Latina Diva on Wheels! She is a bit over 3 feet tall and uses a manual wheelchair due to her disability. Nathasha was born with Osteogenesis Imperfecta, brittle bone disease and has had several operations and literally over one hundred fractures before the age of 12. Now at the age of 36, she is a reading and language arts middle school teacher, a consultant for a paratransit company that transports people with physical disabilities and an advocate for the physically disabled.
Recently, she has been very outspoken with the media and the school board about the poor salaries for Miami Dade Public School teachers who are now leaving the cities for better paying jobs.
As if that is not enough, she started her own business four years ago and runs her own non profit company, World Wide Ability, Inc. the parent company to audacitymagazine.com, an online lifestyle magazine for people with physical disabilities. The magazine covers international issues from politics, sex, fashion, and social issues that interest people with physical disabilities.
She recently earned an award for being one of Miami’s savviest singles and her award winning magazine has earned her kudos from the Miami Herald and has been described as the “cosmo for the extraordinary person”.
Her current favorite saying is “Do or Do Not, there is no try” by Yoda! Another short but adorable creature from Star Wars!
Luce Bealieu walked away from the high-powered corporate design world and has never looked back. A Montreal-based graphic designer and strategist, Luce aggressively reinforces her vision for a 100% sustainable world -- both in form and function -- and particularly as it relates to the advertising, fashion and design industries.
In 2004, Luce launched Article, under which she works as a design consultant and develops her line of eco-design products. In 2006 she launched Posch, a line of chic shopping bags crafted from discarded bedsheets. And more recently, Luce has brought out a hot line of I love Kyoto T-shirts hewn from recycled thrift store T-shirts. Both products have been recognized for their innovation and zero impact philosophy.
Via her blog: http://blog.articlestudio.ca/, Luce actively posts on the latest news and events relating to eco design, fashion and sustainability. Her blog now draws more than 3,000 visits each week and is growing steadily. Luce is one to watch for 2007... a one-woman powerhouse working to minimize our impact on the planet.
Barbara Bender Breck, Episcopal Priest. Mom & Daughter
Barbara Bender Breck:a widow, a daughter's Mom, a caregiver to an elderly ailing Mom and an extremely caring soul for many children and adults in the San Francisco Bay Area communities. Beginning her working career as a corporate lawyer and realizing that she was giving out way too much advise for the fees that the law firm was charging, B3 (as we call her) listened to her calling, and departed law to become an ordained Priest in 1993.
This voracious believer in giving back to the community is the Pastor at St. Anne's Episcopal Church in Fremont, CA, and amazingly finds time for unending organizations that benefit and highlight women and children, within the church world and outside. She serves as Chaplain for the National Episcopal Women's History Project which recognizes the work of women, lay or ordained, and serves to preserve their stories of love and not being loved in a church wehre women were not always honored,in hopes of saving history for future generations.
As a consultant and trainer for "Safeguarding God's Children" B3 volunteers abundantly with Faith Formation Education formulated for children and adults - anything or anywhere that helps and strengthens women and children, B3 will be present. And with a few hours left in her week, she serves on a Multi-Ethnic Commission chairing the Anti-Racism Commission for the Diocese of California. And she still has time to help women in more ways as a travel fashion consultant for "Weekenders". This is where she preaches (without a pulpit!) that opening doors for other women enables them to learn financial stability, independence, a career, self-esteem and to realize they can have a better life for themselves.
I proudly nominate my friend Barbara Bender Breck for Visionary Award 2007.
Michelle inspires me with the simplest of actions. A newlywed who moved to Alaska (thousands of miles away from all friends and family), Michelle soon found herself in a military community, expecting her first child, with a husband in Iraq. Embracing her new “Alaskan family,” Michelle was writing a weekly column entitled “Until They Come Home,” depicting the everyday life of the homefront heroes (the families of our soldiers), working at the local TV station, being a mentor for Big Brothers Big Sisters, and taking on the role of Volunteer Coordinator at her church.
Among all of this, she gave birth to her son, Connor. Michelle inspires me just in the way she leads her life. She constantly looks for ways to help her friends, and to help those she does not even know. She stored personal items for single deployed soldiers. She hosted a “prom” for the local military wives. She has a huge heart and is always ready with an encouraging word for her neighbor, a positive thought, or just some free babysitting! Even when her husband’s deployment was extended, she fought through her emotions, and her weekly column helped the community focus on the positive.
Her commitment to her marriage throughout a very difficult 16 month-deployment is inspirational. Her dedication to keeping connected to her husband, and to building a relationship between her husband and son, lets me know that true love does last a lifetime. If she has touched and inspired my life (thousands of miles away in New York), I know that she has done even more for those around her. Her choice to embrace the positive and bring good to the world is why Michelle is my Diva Visionary.
“Thank you for giving me my life back.” These words grace a thank you card that hangs on a bulletin board next to the desk of this nominee who is far more than a visionary; she is an inspiration whose positive influence permeates the community. I am nominating Mari Garner for the Diva Visionary award. Her infectious spirit and positive energy started with a spark: one boot camp, one park, two instructors. The spark was stoked to a flame that has grown to five boot camps, four parks and over forty instructors. In just sixteen months, she has had 1,177 boot campers that have taken her program. I will let the boot campers tell you how she does it.
• Your "you can do anything you put your mind to" attitude is wonderfully contagious.
• I thank you for taking me where many personal training sessions and countless memberships have NEVER taken me. I can really hold my head up high knowing that I have accomplished so much.
• The program has taught me that you can overcome hurdles and strive to be the best that you can be.
• What I did not expect was that Boot Camp would be so motivating! Knowing that I’ve done something beyond what I thought I was capable has made me feel like a champ! I walk away, and say to myself, “Look what I can do!”. That’s a great feeling. Thank you.
• I physically feel so much better, and I believe that I am thinking more positively, too. Its pretty amazing how one program can be so well-designed that it brings couch-potatos side by side with marathon-class athletes and everyone in between, and we all get so much out of it.
Alice Hiatt is an extraordinary woman. Humanitarian, mountain adventurer, educator and healer, this Visionary is all heart- and soul. Raised in southern California and originally a “surfer chic,” Alice’s early work as an Acupressurist took her around the world on cruise ships. In her career as a Psychiatric Nurse, she saw and implemented the benefits of combining Western and Eastern Medicine long before it was a trend. The mother of two grown sons, Alice divides her time between teaching healing work at the Acupressure Institute in Berkeley (where she developed various program curriculum and designed eight courses) and running her own NGO, Hope Through Opportunity, which benefits the Tanzanian village that has welcomed her as a sister, advisor and Medicine Woman. An avid mountaineer, Alice uses her expeditions as fundraisers to buy medicines, food and supplies for her village as well as hundreds of African orphans. For fifteen years she has also made an annual pilgrimage to New Orleans for their Jazz Fest and considers the music so strong as to be “a rite of passage.” When Hurricane Katrina hit, Alice organized another fundraiser to help friends of hers there who had been of such great support to her over the years. Michael Reed Gach, friend and founder of the Acupressure Institute has said that she works and lives in, “the spirit of celebration in the form of healing and renewal… always challenging both herself and others.” Having traveled to 112 countries, Alice plans to summit the world’s seven highest peaks on all seven continents. In preparing for her first, Mt. Kilimanjaro, Alice walked across England the previous year. Currently she is being called to Mt. Everest and also has a trip planned for horseback riding across Mongolia in the summer of 2008.
Janet Lane is a truly giving and caring person. I first met her when she joined the board of the Davis Community Meals organization that provides meals, housing, and services to the homeless and needy people of Davis, California and surrounding areas. I have since had the pleasure of getting to know her better when we have served together as volunteers at the Cold Weather Shelter. Janet truly wants to help others and puts their best interests first. When faced with a decision, Janet tries to gather information and then decide, not just based on cold, hard facts . . . but with a compassionate appreciation of how all affected parties will feel. She is always kind and diplomatic whether she is talking to the president of the board of directors or to an inebriated homeless person. She is truly generous with her time and her money. When she sees deficiencies in food or drinks, or even larger items, like appliances, at the shelter, she is always willing to either buy them herself, or help chip in for them. And, she doesn’t skimp on quality. For instance, when there was no milk, she got organic milk produced in a local dairy and sold in a reusable glass bottle with a hefty deposit. Though I only get to see a few glimpses of how else she helps people, I know that she devotes a great deal of time to her students (often in an ESL program) and her parish. And she also volunteers regularly at a thrift store that benefits a local charity. Janet never brags so I’m sure that this brief paragraph only begins to scrape the surface of her contributions to society
Katherine Leatherman, General Manager/Acting Executive Director
Kathy Leatherman has worked in our facility for over 25 years. She began as a clerk, moving up into accounting, and then eventually covering every aspect of our office and currently has become the Acting Executive Director for a Waste Water Treatment Plant in Monmouth County, NJ. Since starting her position she managed to find time to get married to a wonderful man, help raise step-children as well as grandchildren while having her own 2 beautiful daughters. Kathy has also taught in her church Sunday School as well as volunteer in church. I myself have been in her employ for almost 5 years. Not only is she a very professional supervisor but a true friend to all of us, we would all perhaps refer to her as our sister. She is the most supportive person I have ever met, through all the trials and tribulations of life outside of our office as well as her constant help in the office. I myself, along with all of us here would do anything for Kathy Leatherman because of the kindest that she exudes perpetually. Kathy Leatherman is a one-of-a-kind 'DIVA VISIONARY.'
Jane Leu has dedicated her career to helping immigrant and refugee professionals get back into the careers they had before they came to the U.S. Six years ago she started Upwardly Global in our kitchen and she now has a staff of 13 on both coasts dedicated to making a lasting and meaningful social impact. Jane is a visionary because she is also persuading Fortune 1000 companies to reconsider how they recruit, interivew and retain diverse candidates. Jane isn't satisfied with finding jobs for a few hundred people - her goal is systemic change and she won't stop until she gets there.
Starting and managing a non profit organization is hard work and Jane could use a vacation.
If a Diva is someone conceited or driven by a sense of entitlement, then Jane is not a Diva. If, on the other hand, a Diva is someone who has strong opinions, a strong will, and is ready to "shake things up", then you won't find a more visionary diva than my wife, Jane Leu.
Janelle Lin, Nonprofit Executive/Managing Director
Janelle is the ultimate diva visionary. In college, Janelle mentored a Nigerian orphan living in South Central L.A. She took this girl under her wing, helping her to instill self confidence and willpower. Seven years later, her mentee is in college, inspiring other women with her story. Since that experience, Janelle has made it her mission to empower young people and give them access to opportunity. To that end, Janelle has held a myriad of positions to further her impact on the community, including working for the Mayor of Los Angeles, serving as Director of LA’s BEST (the nation’s leading afterschool program), and serving as a prestigious Coro Fellow. I met Janelle at Harvard Business School, when she was one of the few MBA’s who came to school with noble pursuits – to gain the management expertise that would make her an amazing nonprofit leader and inspire her fellow MBA’s through philanthropy. At Harvard, she served as President of the Social Enterprise Cluband founded the HBS Board Fellows Program to train MBA’s to serve on nonprofit boards. Today, Janelle serves as Managing Director of Step Up Women's Network (www.stepupwomensnetwork.org), a national nonprofit membership organization that empowers women and girls. She serves as a role model for the 30,000 female supporters, creating innovative afterschool programs for teen girls in Harlem and the Bronx (health & wellbeing programs, arts, and career development). Janelle is also an inspiration to her friends as a model of work-life balance. In her spare time, Janelle is a certified yoga teacher, an artist, and a phenomenal dancer. I think you can tell how much I love Janelle and how grateful I am to have her in my life.
Chris Weinkopf wrote:
She gets my vote!
Amy Huang wrote:
She gets my vote! I can vouch firsthand for Janelle and confirm that she is indeed the ultimate diva visionary. Not only does Janelle have the heart and the passion necessary to be a visionary, she also has the skill and talent necessary for success.
Needless to say, Janelle is one of the best people I know. Her zest for life and passion for community is infectious. The way she lives her life is an example for the rest of us! I am a better person for having known her.
Christine Lin wrote:
She gets my vote!
Andrew Immerman wrote:
She gets my vote!
Janel Lyman, Office Assistant
My mother is the most selfless person I know. She would sacrifice everything for her children. She hasn't taken a nice vacation in 15 years. She goes camping with her friend and their dogs every summer, but can’t afford more than that. Two kids are financially unstable and can barely make the rent, and my brother and I live with her because we can't afford to move out. She is constantly lending money that she can't afford to give just so her two kids can keep their heads above water. She gives herself no luxuries in life. She only provides the bare essentials so she can give her kids everything they might need. I have tried numerous times to help pay for a nice vacation, but she outright refuses. She doesn't want to burden her kids with her financial troubles, but I know they are there. I would love to give her this vacation because she deserves this. Don't think I didn't consider nominating myself. I would love a vacation from my stressful life. But I was thinking about who really deserves a vacation from their everyday lives and I immediately thought of her. This is something she needs, but would never give to herself. Please give me the opportunity to give her something that she won't allow me to give her. An opportunity to say thank you for everything she has done and sacrificed so her children could live the life she won't allow herself. She deserves to be treated like a diva. She gives so much and deserves to get something amazing in return. She has done so much for me. She has been my inspiration to be a better person, to give generously without expecting anything in return. I just wish more people could be like her.
I Nominate myself for many reasons. I am a 28 year old Residential Counselor who has a very busy life and would love to win this contest to collect my thoughts and get realize I am here and what are somethings I enjoy because at this point I put everything I like and want to do aside. I work from 11 to 7 as a residential counselor for the Behavorial Health. Then Take my sister to work before 8 am and drop my 2yr old neice off at day care. Sometimes I don't have certain days off at my second job so it would be everything that I said thus far sleep for 30 min then go work at "DOTS" which is a clothings store. Then I get off from there at 2 pm clean my house a little wake my fiance ans take him to work. Come back and pick my sister and my niece up and take them home. rest for 3 to 4 hours and then go get my fiance and drop him off at home then go back to my counseling job. I tend to put everyone before myself because I have a very kind heart and if I can help someone out I believe it will come back to me and I will get a reward for doing all that I can to helping people. That is the end of my little speal. I hope I wil and if not good luck to all the ladies that are nominated and to the possible winner relax and take it all in you derve it.
Lindsay is a born “doer”….high energy, lots of personality, very independent and full of piss and vinegar! The later is tempered with a great deal of innate love and a sense of charity for human kind. Her tenacity and determination has made her a survivor as she has had to survive and put into perspective, much pain and suffering in her short life. A female child who chooses to assert herself in effort become her own unique person in spite of what life throws her way, in my mind, is truly a visionary.
She launched herself into the "work world" at the young age of 12, and since has run three companies; two in advertising/marketing and one event marketing company. Now at 25 she is the President of Ad Femme, Inc., the editor-in-chief of TheCoregInsider.com, a weekly contributor to DigitalMoses.com, a sought after web design consultant, AND the Director of Partner Development for ValidClick (AMEX: THK).
Through her current work with AdFemme.com she touches the lives of many on a daily basis. Her #1 priority is building communities of empowered women, and giving back to community through the donation of 5 – 10% of Ad Femme’s revenues. She was recently asked to be the Director of Marketing for Chance on Charity: an organization focused on grand scale non-profit fund raising.
Yes, I am proud of my child, not because she came from me, but what she had to “get herself out of” to become a successful, generous and loving human being. I flatter myself to think that I had something to do with that.
Keri is the noblest person that I have ever had the privilege of meeting. She grew up in a small city in the heart of America's Midwest but was never afraid to stand up for what she believed in – no matter who she might offend. Her feelings about racial equality and animal rights didn't fit the mold down there but she made sure that people heard her voice.
When I met her, in college, I asked her what she wanted to do with her life. She took a moment to collect herself and said, "I'd like to be a Mother," with a sincerity that told me it was a position she was used to having to defend. I merely nodded, "I want to help someone into the world. I want to be there to teach them things and to pick them up when they fall down."
Over time, we fell in love. Keri got a position doing internet marketing and rapidly rose through the ranks – soon she managed a team of people, a job that she enjoyed and found rewarding.
A little while later, we got married. Keri spoke to me again of her desire to be a Mother. "What about your career?" I asked her. "None of that matters to me," she said, "I have never lost sight of my goal in life."
And so we had our first son, Auden Needham, this past October. Keri left the workaday world behind her and is now the loving, kind-hearted and patient Mother that she always knew she would be.
Before my mother had reached the age of 24, she had lost both of her parents to cancer, her brother to suicide, and a marriage to her partner’s adultery. Yet, her faith maintained unwavering optimism for the future, and she’s made it. She is an inspiration, and that’s not even the half of it.
She has raised five daughters, a feat in and of itself. We are independent, proud, and truly enjoy one another’s company. We span ten years, have all attended or are currently attending accredited universities, and are an industrial engineer, a fifth grade teacher, a fundraiser, a human resources specialist and a student aspiring to also teach elementary school. The thing we most have in common is our admiration for our mom.
In addition to parenting the five of us, in 1993 my mom was struck with a dire need to be a foster parent. She had realized her calling and announced to us “I was put on this earth to be a mother.” Few are lucky enough to realize their calling with such clarity, but she had. And, she was right.
We were a foster home to twenty-nine children over a ten-year period. As my sisters and I grew old enough my mom shared with us the details of these children’s pasts, as both explanation why we needed to share our mother with them as much as a lesson in how fortunate we are.
I love my mom and am so proud of her I am practically bursting. This contest has given me the chance to put in writing what I know to be true every day, and I sincerely believe that of all the nominees, who I’m positive are incredible women, my mother is the most deserving of this recognition.
Six months after 9/11, Sophia Omar returned to her native Afghanistan for the first time in 23 years. Omar used her own money to start a 2-room medical clinic in Kabul, and convinced her brother-in-law, who was then a physician in Pakistan, to come run the clinic. Later, Omar recruited additional resources from Rotary International, CURE, and Assist, enabling the clinic to expand and become the largest hospital in Afghanistan.
Omar knows how to inspire others and manages to leverage existing organizations to get things done. When one of her customers told her that the Rotary Foundation is dedicated to local and global service projects, she joined the Rotarians. In 2002, she became the charter president of the Hayward Sunset Rotary club with the goal of enlisting the local Afghani community to help the people of Afghanistan.
Together with the Rotarians, Omar founded De Solay Daywa (“Torch of Peace”) Foundation to raise money for food, health care, and education in Afghanistan.
De Solay Daywa has arranged for huge shipments of rice, beans and cooking oil to Afghanistan. With the help of the Special Knitting Forces, she has also delivered sweaters, hats, and mittens to the children.
The hospital that grew from the small clinic that Omar started in Kabul is now a center of medical training in the country.
De Solay Daywa also runs a training center for widows, which contains a bakery, and a knitting and embroidery center. The products are sold in the marketplace, providing earnings for the women and their families.
When the security situation improves, Omar would like to establish another hospital in Kandahar, Afghanistan. In the meantime, she has expanded her focus beyond Afghanistan, sending shipments of knitted clothing to children at a homeless shelter in San Jose and a village in Mexico.
I would have to nominate my 25 year old sister Andrea. She had her son at 17 years old, yet she has defied the odds in her life. She refused to be a statistic, and through hard work and dedication she went on to college and obtained not only her bachelor's degree but also her master's degree in education a few months ago. It was during her time in college that she caught the travel bug! She started to participate in "alternative" spring break programs where her travels are not only a vacation-time for her, but also a chance to travel to countries that are in need of some kind of help, so she volunteers her time while "vacationing." Her trips have brought her to Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Cuba (her personal favorite). Each time she goes to one of these places she is involved in a community service project such as building houses in Siuna, Nicaragua, refurbishing schools in Caimito, Cuba and working in the fields with veterans of the Cuban Revolution planting and tending to crops.
She is so travel obsessed that as soon as she returns from a trip, she is automatically thinking of how she can go back. Since July, she has been back to Cuba two times and is returning again at the end of January to participate in another project in the community! At the same time, she is teaching her son the value of community service and helping others in need. When not traveling, she is a teacher in an alternative school program for youth ages 16-24. It's a tough population but she can relate to them. For these reasons, I believe that she is a deserving diva!
I am nominating Sony Stark (aka Pilot Girl) for her courage and talent and dedication to helping others.
Sony had a comfortable position as a videographer with a television station in New York. When the station made drastic staff cuts and, at the same time, gave enormous bonuses to management, Sony quit to travel the world with her video camera.
From the townships of South Africa, which she visited with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, to the villages of the Shudra and Dalits ("untouchables") of India, Sony has used her talents as a writer and videographer to shed light on social injustice and to empower those who are its victims.
Now self-employed at Pilot Girl Productions, Sony continues to help non-profit groups, especially those dedicated to helping children, the homeless & mentally ill, animals and the environment.
GAIA–San Francisco was founded by Cheri Sugal, a leader in international rainforest conservation. For the past decade, Cheri has worked in more than 25 countries with indigenous people, governments and local landowners, helping to create more than 100 million acres of new protected areas world-wide. She firmly believes that the most important political and moral problem of our time is the the possible loss of half of all species on earth by the end of this century (EO Wilson) and, that the same time, that it only takes a few people with passion and commitment to turn the tide.
In 2001, she helped broker the largest conservation grant in history, a one hundred million dollar fund created by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, for Conservation International in Washington , DC. In 2002, she founded World Parks, a non-profit organization helping to broker conservation deals with private landowners in areas identified as the last remaining habitats for the world's most endangered species ( www.zeroextinction.org.)
She now focuses her conservation efforts in southern Mexico as Executive Director of an organization called Friends of Calakmul (www.calakmul.org), which is working with local landowners in the region to set aside half a million acres of pristine jaguar habitat for conservation. She is also a steering committee member of the Natural World Museum (www.naturalworldmuseum.org), the first museum in the world dedicated entirely to conservation, and a board member of Costa Rica Conservation Trust (www.conservecostarica.org), which is protecting land and providing environmental education for local people in the central pacific valley of Costa Rica.
