The Q Awards
The Q Awards honor our fellow community members and organizations whose work continually reflects Spiral Q’s core values of using sustainable practices, challenging discrimination, working collaboratively, and realizing a symbiosis of art-making and activism. We are honored to name these outstanding organizations and individuals as structural pillars of the community with whom we can build a stronger, more just, and more joyous Philadelphia.
2012 Awardees
Courage of Conviction
Award - Judy Bardes
Judy Bardes has been a vital member of the philanthropic community for decades. Her work as an independent foundation manager and consultant has been driven by an inspired goal of improving the quality of life for people and communities in Greater Philadelphia by encouraging creative grantmaking and collaboration amongst the organizations she has served. A host of organizations have benefited from Judy’s talented and thoughtful support, including 1957 Charity Foundation, the Donley Foundation, the Douty Foundation, the Foerderer Foundation, the Genuardi Family Foundation, the Hilles Fund, the Kynett Foundation, Lycoming Charitable Fund, Seybert Foundation and the Wyomissing Foundation. Her commitment to the Philadelphia community extends beyond her professional life; Judy is currently involved with the Mayor’s Commission on Homelessness , and the Homeless Program Committee of the Philadelphia Urban Affairs Coalition. She has previously served organizations such as the Friends of the Free Library, Philadelphia Society for Services to Children, United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania and the YWCA of Philadelphia. Judy is a member of The Pennsylvania Society and the Cosmopolitan Club. A graduate of Bryn Mawr College and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Judy has truly dedicated her life and professional career to the assistance of others.
Artist Activist Award - Peter Lien
Peter has over 22 years of creating and producing visual based content for many client developed campaigns in the financial, healthcare, pharmaceutical and public health sectors. Additionally, Peter has had a deep and consistent commitment to ensuring that grassroots community based organizations have the highest quality images and brand consultation. Peter's work with Spiral Q, GALLEI, Safe Guards, Midnight Cowboy Project, The William Way Center, GMHLA, Business Council for Peace: RWANDA 2005 to 2008, and many many more has made a profound impact and contribution to documenting the visual history of these powerful community forces. He was Co-Founder of Philadelphia Pride Parade Music Festival and National Coming Out Day Block Festival. Peter was appointed by former Mayor Ed Rendell to the AIDS Consortium. Peter's work globally is just as expansive, responsive and profound. Peter is a Commissioned Officer US Army Signal Corps and led a documentary team to Uganda to document for Traditional Healers and their response to HIV in 1999. Peter led the first LGBT identified expedition to Antarctica 2000 with Tim McCarthy. Later he led a documentary team as The UTOPIA Project (United Team of People in Action) - Uganda, Kenya, South Africa and Rwanda Anti-Poverty project with Lawrence Koh in 2005. All along he has worked and built a sustainable business with college buddy, Scott Nibauer as principles in Lien/Nibauer Photography, Inc. They produce and shoot HD video and high quality still photography. He works with clients to create content designed to maintain the brand and its chief communications objectives. None of this is possible without the love and continual support from his husband and best friend Eric Bunting.
Champion of Arts and Activism Award - Fran Aulston
Frances P. Aulston is the founder and Executive Director of the West Philadelphia Cultural Alliance (WPCA). A seasoned community leader & activist, and a former research librarian for the Free Library of Philadelphia, Ms. Aulston founded WPCA in 1984 with the assistance of several local artists. Under her leadership, the WPCA has worked in partnership with more than 80 institutions throughout Philadelphia to provide and promote arts programming, to gain visibility for local artists and to build community through the arts. Ms. Aulston has also been instrumental in having the last residence of Paul Robeson, legendary artist, scholar, athlete, activist and humanitarian, preserved as a historical house museum. A tireless arts and social advocate, Ms. Aulston is a founding member of ArtsWest: West Philadelphia Partners for the Arts, and has served or is presently serving on the board of directors and advisories for numerous organizations. She has been recognized on numerous occasions for her contributions, and in 2000 was the first recipient of the Community College of Philadelphia Community Leadership Award. Ms. Aulston has shared her extensive knowledge of community organizing, activism and the arts through lectures at institutions such as the Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania, the Free Library of Philadelphia, the National Society of Fundraising Executives, the YMCA West Philadelphia Branch, and the Mann Music Center of the Performing Arts. A graduate of Antioch and Drexel Universities, Ms. Aulston was recently awarded the Pioneer Award presented to individuals that have overcome obstacles in dedication to their mission by the Philadelphia Multicultural Affairs Congress.
Commitment to Community Award - Elsie Wise
Elsie Wise's commitment to the West Philadelphia community in which she has resided for decades is represented through her extensive work on behalf of her neighbors and fellow community members. Among her incredible accomplishments has been her tenure as President of the West Powelton Concerned Community Council. In that role she has been integral to the effort to provide direction and positivity for neighborhood youth, supporting senior citizens in the community, and encouraging local community organizations. In 1991, she founded the West Powelton Steppers as a recreational activity for neighborhood youth that would motivate them, and provide them with discipline and a program to be proud of. The success of the West Powelton Steppersas a drill team and an inspiration and source of pride for West Powelton speaks tremendously to Ms. Wise's efforts to strengthen her community. A known and respected member of West Philadelphia's leadership, Ms. Wise currently serves on the Community Advisory Board of the Netter Center for Communnity Partnerships.
Free Speech Award - PhillyCAM
PhillyCAM is the non-profit designated by the City of Philadelphia to operate its public access television network. On October 23, 2009 PhillyCAM started cablecasting on Comcast 66/966 and Verizon 29/30. This is a landmark achievement in a city that fought for 27 years to finally get its public access television. The mission of PhillyCAM is to provide Philadelphia residents and organizations with the opportunity to communicate with each other through the creation and distribution of non-commercial media. PhillyCAM provides residents and community organizations access to media-making tools, training and opportunities for interaction between diverse communities.
Founder's Award
- Bread and Roses Community Fund
Bread & Roses is a unique gathering of donors and activists committed to supporting social justice movements through grantmaking and training. Our mission has been to fund local social change activism in order to help make the Delaware Valley a region where economic justice, equality, and opportunity are available to everyone. A community-based public charity, Bread & Roses has distributed nearly $10 million in grants to organizations and issues that other funders often wouldn’t support, including groups working for better schools, fewer prisons, more jobs, access to health care and many other important issues. As a member of the Funding Exchange, Bread & Roses is part of a larger movement of local and national organizations, technical assistance providers, think tanks, foundations and socially responsible business people that work for social change. After more than 35 years of supporting change not charity, Bread & Roses remains committed to leading strategic change in the Delaware Valley toward our vision of a transformed society – one which is fair, equitable and just.
Active-est Activist Award
- Granny Peace Brigade Philadelphia
The year was 2006, three years after George Bush had sent thousands of young American men and women to Iraq….to return in body bags hidden from public view. Americans wondered what we were doing in Iraq and why we were there. In Philadelphia, women dressed in black held weekly vigils, and a group of grandmothers got together to share their distress and plan what to do. Thus, the Granny Peace Brigade Philadelphia was born---though the early name was “Grandmothers for Peace.” The first action was on Tax Day at Rittenhouse Square, when a group of grandmothers dressed in fancy hats circulated petitions urging an end to the fighting in Iraq. A month later about 15 Grandmothers met in Fairmount and decided to enlist---“we have lived our lives,” they said, “so send us to fight, for we don’t want our grandchildren coming home in body bags.” On June 28, 2006, eleven Grandmothers, one in a wheel chair, and including Philadelphia poet laureate Sonia Sanchez, entered the Recruiting Center at Broad and Cherry Streets to sign up. With hundreds of supporters outside, they refused to leave and were arrested on a charge of “defiant trespassing.” At their December trial, the Judge dismissed the case, again to a bevy of cheering supporters. Since then, opting for a more active name, the Granny Peace Brigade Philadelphia has lobbied in Congress, worked to educate high school students about alternatives to the military, knit “stump socks” for wounded veterans, leafleted in Philadelphia to raise awareness of the high cost of war, and marched with Spiral Q in their annual Peoplehood Parade. Currently alerting people to the danger of war in Iran, the Grannies value the fun of working together on serious issues. They keep going because they care about their grandchildren and the future of the world. |
