The Oranges and Maplewood NAACP has bestowed its 2016 Community Award on South Orange Village Trustee Deborah Davis Ford.
Davis Ford received the award at 103rd Annual Freedom Fund Award Event on April 24 at the Crystal Plaza in Livingston, NJ.
In her remarks (see the full speech below), Davis Ford noted that it was humbling to receive the honor “especially for something that is second nature to me.”
She detailed how she had been raised on the idea of service, noting that her father, who worked two jobs, still found the time to tutor her uncle who was struggling to make his way through college. Davis Ford said that, indeed, both her parents were generous souls who opened their home to family and strangers alike.
She said that small acts were just as important (perhaps more so) than large gestures, and asked participants to rise and take a pledge to commit at least one act of kindness in the next 30 days.
Davis Ford ended her comments with the following quote from Kahlil Gibran:
“I slept and I dreamed that life is all joy. I woke and I saw that life is all service. I served and I saw that service is joy.”
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