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Above, from left: Luis Lazo-Silva, Edgar Morales, NiOT co-chair Larry Spruill, Shirley Satterfield, Sumaiyya Stephens, NiOT co-chair Linda Oppenheim, and Sophia Vargas.

Not in Our Town Princeton honored eight  high school students at the annual Unity Award ceremony and reception on June 5 at Princeton University’s Carl A. Fields Center. All the students received certificates and cash awards for their being role models in their efforts to promote respect for diversity and advance the cause of race relations. Four (above) were seniors from Princeton High School. For what was read, click on the name: Sophia Vargas, Sumaaya Stephens, Edgar Morales, and Luis Lazo-Silva.

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Above, from left: NiOT board members Wilma Solomon and Shirley Satterfield, NiOT co-chair Larry Spruill, awardees Ziad Ahmed, Jamaica Ponder, Priya Vulchi, Winona Guo, and NiOT co-chair Linda Oppenheim.

 

PHS junior Jamaica Ponder, was honored as an “Upstander” for sounding an alarm Three youth members of NiOT’s board were honored. Winona Guo and Priya Vulchi, juniors at PHS, co-founded CHOOSE,, a student group that helps classroom teachers to comfortably and honestly facilitate discussions of race and culture.  The third board member, Ziad Ahmed, a junior at Princeton Day School, founded redefy, a national organization that attempts to defy seemingly unchangeable stereotypes. These three had also received the national award, the Princeton Prize in Race Relations.

They also received certificates from the office of Bonnie Watson Coleman. Below, from left, Ponder, Morales, Guo, Vulchi, Ahmed, Lazo-Silva, Stephens, Varga, and Reed.

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Calvin C. Reed, far right, presented certificates  from U.S. Representative Bonnie Watson Coleman to each of the students.

 

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Some of the current and former board members of NiOT, from left: Ted Fetter, Shirley Satterfield, Fern Spruill, Shelley Krause.  Joyce Trotman-Jordan, Simona Brickers, Marietta Taylor, Susanne Lee, and Larry Spruill.