PRESS RELEASE: Thursday, October 21, 2021
ACLU of Delaware Honors Carrie Casey and Dr. Yasser Payne at Thirty-Sixth Annual Kandler Awards Event
WILMINGTON—For 36 years, the ACLU of Delaware (ACLU-DE) has honored Delawareans who have shown a lifetime commitment to fighting for civil liberties through the Gerald E. Kandler Memorial Award. Yesterday, the organization continued that tradition by honoring Carrie Casey and Yasser Payne, Ph.D., at a hybrid event with over 100 attendees.
Carrie Sawyer Casey is the manager of the New Castle County Division of Community Development and Housing. As a direct U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Entitlement Grantee, Carrie is responsible for the management of $20 million in federal funding annually. Under her leadership, the Division was awarded over $15 million in additional HUD stimulus funding and the successful implementation of programs including the Neighborhood Stabilization Program and the Strong Neighborhood Housing Program. In 2020, Carrie, along with her colleagues, successfully advocated for and saw through the opening of the Hope Center, a former hotel that has been converted to serve people experiencing homelessness.
Yasser Arafat Payne, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice and the Department of Africana Studies at the University of Delaware. Dr. Payne’s created a street ethnographic research program known as Street Participatory Action Research (Street PAR)—the process of doing research and activism with street identified populations. Dr. Payne’s first Street PAR project in Wilmington, Delaware was The People’s Report: The Link between Structural Violence and Crime in Wilmington, Delaware. This study trained fifteen people (20-48) formerly involved with the criminal justice system to empirically document the relationship between economic well-being and gun violence in the Eastside and Southbridge neighborhoods of Wilmington. This study was funded with generous grants issued by the American Recovery Reinvestment Act, the University of Delaware and The United Way of Delaware. To learn more about this project, please visit: thepeoplesreport.com.
The Kandler Awards Celebration, co-hosted by Mike Brickner, executive director of ACLU-DE, and former Kandler Award honoree state Senator Sarah McBride, was also a celebration of the organization’s 60th anniversary. Musical entertainment was provided by Jea Street, Jr. and Nadjah Nicole, and the fundraiser included an online auction and raffle, left open to the public so those who weren’t able to join the event could still participate in the event.
Sponsors of the 36th Annual Kandler Awards Celebration include:
Protectors of Freedom
Ross, Aronstam, & Mortiz LLP
Defenders of Liberty
Highmark Delaware, Julie Sandler, New Castle County Council
Partners in Justice
David & Sally McBride, Faegre, Drinker, Biddle, & Reath LLP, Incyte, Morris, Nichols, Arsht, & Tunnell LLP, New Castle County Executive Office
Video & Photography Sponsor
Betsy McGeever
Advocates
Amy Simmerman, Carmen Twyman, First State Community Action Agency, Grace & Blair Messner, Joan Kandler, Judy & David Mellen, Larry & Marion Hamermesh, Tom & Jennifer O'Brien, WSFS Cares Foundation
Champions
Alice & Geoff Sawyer, Ariel Gruswitz, Chris & Bill Sudell, Claire & Mikki Snyder-Hall, David & Gwen Brown, Delaware NORML, Department of Africana Studies at the University of Delaware, Don Peterson, Jeffrey & Linnea Goddess, Jeffrey Raffel, Joshua Twilley, Kate Cowperthwait, Kevin & Marilyn O'Connell, Laina & Michael Herbert, Leland & Melva Ware, Marlena Gibson, Mary Jo Anderson, Metropolitan Wilmington Urban League, Mike & Katie Brickner, Nan Hunter, Norman Monhait & Marcia Halperin, Peggy Strine, Tom & Marie Foley
More background on the Kandler Award honorees, musical guests, and a full list of event sponsors can be found online here: https://www.aclu-de.org/en/news/2021-kandler-celebration
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