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Community Shares award winners announced

Pat Schneider  —  8/29/2008 5:07 pm

An activist on LGBT issues, a champion for the homeless and an advocate for Latina women facing abuse will be honored for their contributions to the community at Community Shares of Wisconsin's annual awards celebration.

Nikki Baumblatt, Joseph Lindstrom and Rachel Rodriguez will be recognized at the Sept. 17 event at Monona Terrace Convention Center.

Festivities commence at 5:30 p.m. The suggested ticket price is $35. For more information, call Community Shares at 256-1066 by Sept. 15.

Baumblatt, an OutReach volunteer and former staffer who is recovering from a liver and kidney transplant earlier this month, said Friday she has a new lease on life.

"Now I've got more years to do more positive things and have a positive effect on the lives of others," said Baumblatt, who will receive the first annual Linda Sundberg Civil Rights Defender Award.

Lindstrom got involved in fighting homelessness very soon after arriving at UW-Madison as a freshman, according to a news release from Community Shares.

After doing volunteer and fundraising work with various campus organizations, it became clear to him that a real solution to homelessness would have to come from legislative action and community activism.

From 2001-04 he played an key role in successful campaigns to prohibit rental discrimination against Section 8 recipients and to raise the minimum wage. He now is a volunteer with Tenant Resource Center.

"It can be extremely discouraging to work with homeless individuals every day and to know that a 'success' is helping someone find a minimum wage job or move into a dilapidated apartment," said Lindstrom, who will receive the Liesl Blockstein Community Leadership Award.

"My volunteer community activism has helped me with my professional social service jobs, because it helps me think such jobs might someday be unnecessary," he said.

Rodriguez, co-founder of UNIDOS Against Domestic Violence, will receive the Sally Sunde Child and Family Advocate Award.

She published the first research in the country on the problem of domestic violence against Latina migrant farmworker women. Consequently helped establish UNIDOS Against Domestic Violence here in Wisconsin, while at the same time helping to found a migrant worker group in California.

"All the people and groups that make up Community Shares really live the values and the philosophy that I share too, and they fully support us and our work at UNIDOS," Rodriguez told Community Shares. "They also understand the kind of change that a small group of people can create."

Community Shares will also recognize 24 of member non-profits' Backyard Heroes volunteers.

Pat Schneider  —  8/29/2008 5:07 pm