Chelsea Clinton Receives Val-Kill Award from “Mom’’
Chelsea Clinton was awarded the Val-Kill Medal at the Eleanor Roosevelt Center in Val-Kill on Sunday. She received the award from former recipient, 2016 Democratic Presidential candidate and mother, Hillary Clinton.
Clinton along with five other recipients gathered in Hyde Park to receive the prestigious award that recognizes their humanitarian accomplishments.
John and Gloria Kidd Golden, Lisa Lutoff-Perlo and Zainab Salbi accompanied Clinton on stage to receive the Val-Kill medal at the 32nd annual Val-Kill ceremony.
Organizers of the event emphasized the significance of the annual ceremony in recognition of humanitarian heroes as stated on the website, “extraordinary individuals whose far-reaching influence has made our world a better place.”
Recipients of this years medal stretches from women’s rights to global journalists activism.
Chelsea Clinton heads global health initiatives and is a women’s rights and civic engagement educator for the Clinton Foundation. “[The foundation] partners to help create economic opportunity, improve public health, and inspire civic engagement and service across the United States and around the world,” as stated on the recipient website.
During her speech, Clinton engaged in political discourse of the current administration. “My first honest thought was how tragic that we probably couldn’t get this [Universal Declaration of Human Rights] signed today and how sad that the United States would not be at the forefront today of this,” Chelsea Clinton said during her speech, captured by the Poughkeepsie Journal.
John and Gloria Kidd Golden are lifelong Hyde Park residents and are dedicated service philanthropists and community builders. As reported on the event website, Gloria Kidd Golden had close ties with Eleanor Roosevelt prior to her passing.
Celebrity Cruises President and CEO, Lisa Lutoff-Perlo received the award for, “hiring the industry’s first American female captain of a cruise ship,” as stated on the website, as well as disrupting gender barriers and promoting diversity.
Finally, Zainab Salbi was honored for her work as founder of Women for Women International, which serves women survivors of war through grassroots methods.
The Clinton's have a deep connection with this award, with Hillary Clinton being awarded the medal in 1995 while she was acting First Lady of the United States under husband Bill Clinton.
“The commitment Eleanor Roosevelt had to fight for our values were so ahead of her time, we are still playing catch up,” Hillary Clinton said during her speech captured on the Eleanor Roosevelt Center at Val-Kill Twitter page (@ERVKLeadership). “We have an obligation to speak up for those who are under assault here and around the world.”
Marist College has significant ties to this award as well with former institute President and current Interim-President Dennis J. Murray receiving the award in 1996, one year following Hillary Clinton.
