Photo credit: Courtesy of N Street Village
Actor and social activist Richard Gere didn’t make a big deal over his presence at N Street Village’s Annual Gala at The Ritz Carlton. As a matter of fact, he blended right in – if that’s possible for the megastar who’s looking better than ever. By blended we mean he didn’t call attention to himself; but rather, focused his attention on the purpose of the evening as well as the honorees. Richard Gere could have been anywhere this night, but was here in Washington, DC.
Richard Gere
“I live in New York and spent many many years putting together a film called Time out of Mind. In the process of putting the film out there I’d gotten to know a lot of local groups around the world. I just did the US and they’re (N Street Village) actually one of the better ones: No doubt about it,” he told Hollywood on the Potomac.
“After the release, I had shown the film not only in cities all over America, but also in Europe. I’m here to applaud you, you’re part of an organization that is one of the very top best that I have seen,” he remarked about N Street Village. “I’ve seen some really good ones, some that are not so good, but some that are really good and this is up there at the absolute top of that. They live it (homelessness) 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and it’s not nice. It’s about housing and community. We need a place, we need to be social beings, but also part of it is we need a place where our key will unlock the door or a letter box. That’s a beginning point, housing first.”
Being ‘one of the better ones’ he described is a result of the commitment of the staff who run the organization and their dedication to the cause. “I spent the afternoon there today,” he explained, “and I was really kind of astonished. When I walked in from the street you can tell this is a good place; even just getting out of the car, you can tell this is a good place. Everyone I know here was a totally authentic loving compassionate person. How many times in your life do you find that? Top to bottom, everyone I met on both sides. When that is happening you feel both sides healing each other. You feel that sometimes it shifts from who is the patient client and who is the administrator social worker. That’s what happens with trust, real honest human trust. This is a really interesting way of talking about love and compassion towards enlightenment, but it’s an interesting way of thinking. You wish they were happy. I wish you all happiness, genuinely. I’m really close with people who are happy, who are trusting – trust is not easy. Even for the best of us, trust is not easy. From what these women have been through to be trusting of a situation, trusting of a bunch of white women, rich white women – that’s all of you out there! Come on! Fess up! That’s a big deal. You have to earn that trust, it’s not given away easily. It takes a lot from both sides to make that work. Real human change doesn’t come easily, it doesn’t come quickly, it doesn’t come without a cost and personal commitment, and real generosity. Someone who’s wounded feels that immediately.”
Erna and John Steinbruck Award recipients Courtney Hayes and Rose Shaw pose with actor Richard Gere and Schroeder Stribling, N Street Village Executive Director
“Compassion is the sympathetic feeling that you’re suffering and that I want you to be separated from that suffering,” said Gere. “I feel it, I acknowledge it, I’m here, I have presence with it and I want you to be separated from that suffering. I will be an agent for you to be separated from your suffering. That’s what I felt walking though that place today, a bunch of people who have made the commitment to do the best to separate you from suffering. That’s extraordinary. I don’t know how many connections you have, but money that you’re giving to this organization feeds directly into that universal sense of responsibility and I thank all of you for that.”
Courtney Hayes, Rose Shaw, Melissa Maxfield, Richard Gere and Hillary Baltimore
Indeed, even the 800 guests could feel the passion as they watched Gere embrace the 2016 Steinbruck Award winners – Shaketa Barnes (who wasn’t present) Courtney Hayes and Rose Shaw.
“Tonight we commit to ending homelessness as we know it by 2020. At N Street Village we will do this one woman at a time.” Executive Director Schroeder Stribling.
Jennifer Holliday
Tony Award winner, Jennifer Holliday served as special musical guest singing “And I’m telling you” from the Broadway hit DreamGirls Senator Tom and Mrs. Linda Daschle presented the Founder’s Award to Melissa Maxfield, Senior Vice President of Federal Government Affairs for Comcast NBCUniversal, for her work as a dedicated N Street Village champion.
2016 Gala Co-chair, Hillary Baltimore, made closing remarks, a final pitch for support and thanked all in attendance for their important role in helping ensure N Street Village is here for every woman in need.
“I am so proud of the work I have done for N Street Village, every year we hear powerful stories about the women they support. N Street Village is so much more than a homeless shelter – it’s a real community of support and healing.” — Melissa Maxfield, 2016 Founder’s Award Recipient
The Sorensons and The Daschles
“Go do the things that you’d remember, do the things that meant something; my life meant something because I helped someone. This homeless situation gets worse as the economy gets worse and people are working 50-60 hours a week to pay their bills somehow. We are going to see a lot more homelessness. People just can’t pay the bills anymore, aside from other issues like emotional and psychological trauma. The most important part is community. There’s not one of us in this room that is not yearning for our tribe, for our family where we are perceived as precious. We need that. Where am I seen as precious? Where is my world that they care for me? They see that I’m valuable, they’ll go out of their way for me in this world, this location. There’s this incredible yearning of being at a place of safety where you are perceived as being precious. In our community today here I can feel that. People felt that they were precious to each other, to the community. I felt myself being desired by the meeting with the people who were in various degrees of reintegrating themselves as human beings, but also becoming trusting social beings again. I’m very proud of you.” Richard Gere
Richard Gere on what compassion and passion looks like:
“Dance Place”
