Mercer County Executive Brian M. Hughes and the county’s Commission on the Status of Women will present the 2015 Mercer County Woman of Achievement, Young Woman of Achievement and Spotlight Agency awards on Tuesday, March 3 at 6 p.m.
The ceremony will take place at Mercer Oaks Clubhouse located at 725 Village Road West in West Windsor.
The Woman of Achievement Award honors women who are Mercer County resident age 18 and older who volunteer time to make the county a better place to live, raise a family and work.
The Young Woman of Achievement Award honors a female high school student age 18 or younger who has shown a commitment to the Mercer County community through volunteer work.
The Spotlight Agency Award, being presented for the first time this year, was created to showcase an agency that the Commission on the Status of Women partners with throughout the year to raise awareness about the commission and the work of that agency.
This year’s Woman of Achievement Award recipients are Bernadette Demski Gur of Lawrence and Phyllis Jones of Titusville.
Gur is a lifelong Mercer County resident who has spent the past 26 years volunteering at CONTACT of Mercer County. She served for many years at a hotline volunteer listening to trouble people, giving referrals and saving lives that might have been lost to suicide. She currently serves on the organization’s board of directors and devotes her time to fundraising to ensure the availability of these lifesaving services.
Jones is a co-founder and president of the board of trustees for UrbanPromise Trenton. She promotes the organization as a tool to act, make things happen, break down barriers and build within very diverse communities.
This year’s Young Woman of Achievement Award recipients are Kyla Chasalow, a student at Hopewell Valley Central High School, and Vanessa Woolfolk, a student at Villa Victoria Academy.
Chasalow is an 11th grader who has been volunteering at the Mercer County Park Equestrian Center for three years supervising and encouraging the participants of the H.A.Y. (Horses and Youth) program and the therapeutic riding program.
Woolfolk is an 11th grader who has worked with children at the Ewing Recreation Day Camp, the Ewing Youth Police Academy and Girl Scout Troop 70633.
This year’s Spotlight Agency Award recipient is the Zonta Club of Trenton/Mercer.
Founded in 1931, the Zonta Club has worked to improve the legal, political, economic, educational and health state of women and children in Mercer County and to work toward eradication of violence and abuse against them.The club has donated more than $250,000 and hundreds of service hours to organizations in Mercer County as well as awarding annual scholarships to women pursuing undergraduate and graduate studies.
