Lexington celebrates peace with Friday events

March is the National Social Work month, and Lexington social workers and advocates are raising awareness for peace.

Lexington and the UK College of Social Work combined events that recognize groups and individuals that advocate peaceful conflict resolutions Friday at the W. T. Young Library.

The events were originally scheduled for Lexington’s annual Reconciliation Breakfast, which was canceled due to low reservations.

“It’s not that people don’t care,” said Kay Hoffman, dean of the College of Social Work and co-chair of the reconciliation events. ”It’s small agencies and individual people who have been the backbone for this event … and it hasn’t been the best of times.”

Partners with the UK College of Social Work for the events include Habitat for Humanity, the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government, the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government Human Rights Commission, the Humanitarium and the Lexington Commission on Race Relations.

Speakers included Isabel Taylor, a Lexington multicultural affairs coordinator and Bree Pearsall, a human trafficking outreach representative.

The presentations for the Drum Major for Peace Awards, one of which was presented to UK’s director of the Office of Multicultural Student Programming, Chester Grundy.

Debbie Goonan, outreach coordinator of Cathedral of Christ the King and the Hope Center also received the award. Kathy Gannoe, who recently retired as executive director of the Nursing Home Ombudsman Program of the Bluegrass, received the Lexington Humanitarian Award.

One speech about forgiveness and peace was given by visiting journalism professor Terry Anderson.

Anderson was a Middle East correspondent for the Associated Press in the early 1980s, and spent the majority of his time in Beirut to report on the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. In 1985, Anderson was captured and held hostage by Shiites, and wasn’t released until nearly seven years later in December of 1991.

At the Reconciliation Celebration, Anderson spoke about the difficulty of forgiveness, especially during his time as a hostage.

After his release, however, Anderson said he felt required to forgive.

“Forgiveness is a long journey, a process. It’s not like a wall switch,” Anderson said, “and it takes you some weird places.

“I’m still on that journey.”