Photo credit: Courtesy of IFE
“I want to thank everybody for coming. I know it was probably a huge burden to come out in the sunshine and spend some time with us,” said Elise Ravenscroft, Deputy Director of IFE. “I am very appreciative of how all of you work with us, not only in hosting events, but also in getting your Ambassadors to attend events so that they can be part of the policy wrap tables that we put together – that’s the main [goal] of IFE.” The Institute for Education’s mission is to recognize and promote leadership, civility and finding common ground, locally, nationally and in the world community. IFE also educates youth for global citizenship with programs that foster intercultural appreciation.
Anyone in the above photo, clearly wasn’t in their office on Thursday. That would include Tarja Aarnio of Finland; Anna Bramer Chief of Protocol Office, State Department; Tamara Brunhart of Liechtenstein; Kiyomi Buker of Japan; Gwenda DeMoor of Belgium; Zolzaya Erdenechuluun of Mozambique; Ana Freitas of Portugal; Gintare Gedrimaite of Lithuania; Mary Guido of Germany; Anne Hand Jewelry Designer; Elisabeth Herndler of Luxembourg; Asdis Hreinsdottir of Iceland; Marcia Jackson INC; Coach Kemper IFE Founder & CEO; Petra Kuijk of the Netherlands; Luisa Lage of Portugal; Joana Manhanga of Mozambique; Neringa Miliauskaite of Lithuania; Maria Aurelia Morales of Mexico; Alexis Olive Diplomatic Affairs, State Department; Sandra Pandit Cook of Germany; Rosemarie Pauli Chief of Protocol, State Department; Lia Riri of Cyprus; Gladys Sanmiguel of Colombia; Jan Smith IFE Leadership; Tarja Thatcher of Finland; and Ulrike Zimmermann of Austria.
First a bit of history: “The fun thing about Congressional is how it is such an integral part of the Washington public policy life. It was founded in 1924 by five United States Presidents. The reason it was founded, the Secretary of the Interior gave the land to the group that wanted to [fund] it,” said Coach Kathy Kemper. “It was because two Congressman from Indiana thought everything was broken in Washington. There is no respect, there is no civility, there is no common ground. We need to build a place where the politicians, the businessman, the academics can all come and recreate and find common ground. They built this, and the way that they funded it was not through Congress, but members of the industrial elite: Hearst, the Hearst newspapers, Rockefeller, DuPont, Chrysler. The real rich fat cats funded it so that they could build this beautiful building and this beautiful golf courses. There’s two golf courses. This is world class golf courses. The Tiger Woods Tournament is always here, the U.S. Senior Open. Every President of the United States gets an honorary membership. The Bushes played here a lot, President Clinton played here a lot. President Obama only played here once. President Trump, I actually played with President Trump here, not when he was President, like 4 years ago. He was checking out the facility for his golf course out in Virginia. That was a great experience too, as you can imagine. I just think it’s interesting how this club started.”
Guests dined on Chicken Salad and Crab Cakes
….and gossiped diplomatically…… Photo credit: Janet Donovan
“Many of you are very familiar with the Institute for Education and our mission of engaging the global community to encourage collaboration and common ground by harnessing the power of data, soft diplomacy, innovation and technology,” added Kemper. “We are into our third summer now of founding a computer science free summer coding camp at the University of Southern California for Viterbi School of Engineering. We’ve taught kids coding – ages kindergarten through 9th grade. They’re all underprivileged kids from disadvantaged backgrounds. The average income of their families is $40,000. These are things that kids would never get an opportunity to do. Many places where they could go and learn how to code costs $1,000 and they don’t have the means to do that. We really feel like we are kind of changing lives and making a huge improvement with this opportunity. They do it on USC’s campus – one of the most gorgeous campuses in the world. They see that maybe they could go to school there someday. I get goosebumps when I just talk about it. It is so worthwhile.”
