Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder
Originally posted 11/3/2010
Three local Black businesswomen have been chosen for honors by St. Paul-based WomenVenture, an organization that assists women with careers and entrepreneurship. The three will be among others honored at WomenVenture’s 15th Annual Fall Leadership Event to be held Friday, November 12 at the Minneapolis Convention Center.
The Lifetime Achievement Award has been given to Roxanne Givens. She chairs the Minnesota African American Museum and Cultural Center and is the retired president and founder of Legacy, Inc., a real estate management and development corporation.
As an associate professor at the University of Minnesota College of Human Ecology, Givens designed and developed curriculum for the graduate course, “Changing the Face of Housing,” making culture and ethnicity important aspects of real estate development.
Givens and her family are founders of the Givens Foundation, which acquired the Givens Collection of Literature at the University of Minnesota Elmer Anderson’s Special Collection Library” a repository of more than 25,000 literary works by and about African Americans, and the second-largest known African American literary collection.
Verna Cornelia Price, Ph.D., is the recipient of the Pioneer Award. She is the founder, president and principal consultant of J. Cameron & Associates, an organization committed to motivating people to realize and use their personal power.
In 2002, Price created the Power of People Professional Development Process, which equips businesses with tools and strategies to propel their employees to new levels of excellence through personal power and leadership.
In 2005, she founded Girls in Action, a leadership empowerment project for which she received an Ann Bancroft Leadership Award in 2006. In 2007, she and her husband co-founded The Power of People Leadership Institute, a nonprofit organization committed to helping people overcome life’s obstacles while finding success in every area of life through personal power and leadership.
Sharon El-Amin is one of three finalists for the Nothing Ventured-Nothing Gained Award. Owner of El-Amin’s Fish House, a Minneapolis take-out restaurant, El-Amin is a past WomenVenture client who credits the organization with helping her with her business. The business, which began as the Fish Wagon, has operated for 25 years, nine at its current North Minneapolis location.
“Our mission is to be of service to the whole community,” El-Amin wrote in a biographical statement. “We want to show that you can come [to] the North Side and find excellent customer service with a clean environment. We work closely with the Step-Up program, which provides summer jobs for our youth within the community. We also work with employment agencies to provide job placements for adults.”
“We recently received the 2010 Longevity and Sustained Impact Award and the 2010 Small Business Award from the Neighborhood Development Center.”
Singer Jearlyn Steele will perform at the Fall Leadership Event, and actress Geena Davis will be the keynote speaker. Funds raised at the event will benefit WomenVenture programs.
Tickets for the WomenVenture Fall Leadership Event are $125 for individuals and $1,250 for tables of 10. To purchase tickets, and for additional information, call 651-646-3808 or go to www.womenventure.org.
This information was provided by WomenVenture.
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