2021 Humanitarian Awards Celebration

The Fourteenth Annual Humanitarian Awards Celebration was held Thursday, October 21, 2021 from 5:30 – 8:30 p.m. at The Stone Terrace by John Henry’s in Hamilton, NJ.

Honorees

Patricia A. Hartpence

Patricia A. Hartpence

After graduating from Rider University, Pat began her career at NJM Insurance Group.  She has held positions of increasing responsibility in many areas of the organization and has served in such departments as Corporate Systems, Underwriting, HR and currently, Corporate Giving.  Pat supervises programs relating to charitable giving, sponsorships, employee matching as well as community outreach and volunteerism.

Pat feels it is a privilege to assist with the needs of the community.  She serves on the Boards of:  Junior Achievement (Central Board), Rider University, and the Council of NJ Grantmakers.  Pat is a steadfast, passionate and generous Board member for Kidsbridge.

Pat is also a member of the American Heart Association’s Executive Leadership Team for the Central New Jersey Heart Walk and the Gail Bierenbaum Women’s Leadership Council at Rider, where she has participated in the Mentoring Program since 2014.


Paula P. Bethea

Paula P. Bethea

She has received honors from the Trenton Branch of the NAACP, the Jamaican Association of NJ Trenton Branch, the S.E.E.D. MLK, and the Jr. Drum Major Award Capital City Caucus.

Paula’s work in education IS community work. For more than 20 plus years, she had worked tirelessly to champion for the rights to access for hundreds of children. Paula is sought out by community organizations that help with the development of our students beyond the classroom walls. Paula describes her decade long relationship with Kidsbridge: “ Kidsbridge has been at the forefront of helping our school address bullying, racial relationships, social justice, and community activism. Students and families at our school know that we are indeed a village and it takes all of us to sustain change and help our students to aspire.”

Paula Bethea embodies the African Masai tribe’s greeting: ‘And How Are the Children?’ She believes fervently that it is our responsibility as a “village” to ensure: All of the children are well!

Attending Trenton Public Schools, Paula is now the principal of Joyce Kilmer School . Paula began her career as an educator working as a teacher. After obtaining her Master’s Degrees in both Curriculum, Assessment and Supervision and Educational Administration, Paula became a Vice Principal and in 2010 a principal.


Dr. Rameck Hunt

Dr. Rameck Hunt

Dr. Rameck Hunt was born like many other young men in Newark, New Jersey where the neighborhood either makes you or breaks you. Dr. Hunt found several obstacles on his path to success. Yet he was determined that by the end of his career there would be something positive to look back on.

He recalls, “I was in a lot of trouble as a youngster because I had no course for my life. I made many mistakes but eventually learned from them and recognized what I needed to achieve; something different than what I was exposed to-determination and direction.” He found that direction in friends, Dr. George Jenkins and Dr. Sampson Davis.

Today, Dr. Hunt is Board Certified both in internal medicine and obesity medicine and is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. Dr. Hunt practices internal medicine at the University Medical Center at Princeton and is the medical director of the medical weight management program there.

Together with his childhood friends, Drs. Sampson Davis and George Jenkins, Dr. Hunt has co-authored three inspiring books about their lives: The Pact, for adults, and We Beat the Streets, for children, as well as a third book The Bond, highlighting fatherhood relationships. Hunt, Davis and Jenkins are also fondly known as The Three Doctors and travel the country spreading their message of hope, health and education. 

In 2000, the doctors established their non-profit, “The Three Doctors Foundation” to provide health, education, leadership and mentoring programs for youth and communities in need. Early this year, Drs. Hunt and Davis organized free Covid-19 testing in Princeton at the Princeton YWCA.   

Dr. Rameck Hunt – 2021 Kidsbridge Honoree from Euro-Pacific Digital Media on Vimeo.


Cecilia Birge

Cecilia Birge

Cecilia Xie Birge was born in China at the height of the Cultural Revolution and spent part of her childhood in Chinese labor camps where her Western-educated parents were sent.  As a student in Beijing, she participated in the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 and came to America the following year to Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania. 

After college, Cecilia built a successful career on Wall Street and served as the first Asian American woman elected mayor in New Jersey after she and her family settled in Central Jersey.   Her teaching career spans from low performing urban schools to magnet schools and top-rated suburban schools. In 2020, Cecilia was promoted to the position of Assistant Principal at P­­­rinceton High School. 

Cecilia is a community activist, a social justice warrior as well as a champion of racial literacy.  In her role as mayor in Montgomery, she established Montgomery Asian Partnership and helped promote Asian American participation in local politics and governing.  In March 2020, she led the Princeton Chinese Community COVID Relief effort and delivered much needed personal protective equipment including N95 masks to hospitals, nursing homes located in Central Jersey as well as local schools.  She also organized one of the largest food drives in Princeton’s history to help support the half-paralyzed food delivery service to her students and their families during the pandemic. As the pandemic became more widespread, so did hate crimes against Asians.   Cecilia stepped up again and built a collation with over twenty community groups.  Over three thousand people participated in the #StopAsianHate rally on March 27, 2021.

2021 Photo Gallery

Photos by Cie Stroud: Web Site / Facebook Blog