HollywoodOn Productions: Janet Donovan & Brendan Kownacki
Photo credit: Brendan Kownacki
“I’ll be performing with Arturo Sandoval a song that I wrote called Liquid Spirit. It’s about the release of energy and love and culture and soul. I’m honored to perform for the helpers of the helpers,” Grammy Award-winning American jazz vocalist, songwriter, and actor Gregory Porter told Hollywood on the Potomac at the All-Star Concert at the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts where the entertainment community gathered to celebrate our military, veterans, wounded warriors, caregivers and military families while saluting the Lincoln Award recipients.
Gregory Porter
The Lincoln Awards is the first event of its kind to recognize outstanding achievement and excellence in providing opportunities and support to our nation’s veterans and military families. The concert will be broadcast in Spring 2015 to coincide with the 150th Anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s landmark Second Inaugural Address on March 4, 2015, at which Lincoln remarked, “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”
Kira Kazantsev
“Veterans play a huge role in my life. We do a lot of events with the USO. Actually, tomorrow I get to visit many of the local bases and shake hands and just bring as much morale and spirit and joy to the people that need it most,” said Miss America 2015 Kira Kazantsev.
“I think the more we give vets an opportunity to step in front of the camera, once they’re comfortable, and talk about their experiences and their story, we learn more about those individuals and we start to see them as brothers, as sons, as sisters, as daughters. We start to humanize and we get behind them and say it’s not about whether it’s to the left or the right, whatever our political view is, it’s about supporting those men and women who are willing to sacrifice so much so you and I don’t have to,” actor, best-selling author, motivational speaker, Dancing with the Stars phenom, advocate, and wounded U.S. Army veteran J.R. Martinez responded when we asked how we can be sure to keep veterans on people’s minds.
J.R. Martinez
“I’ll be playing some music, singing a song called ‘Fire’ about having your group, your team and what that means and a song called ‘Soldier’ which is using the imagery of a soldier to portray what people who make great sacrifices are all about. These are the gentlemen who are responsible for even having me here,” said musician and singer-songwriter Gavin DeGraw pointing to former Assistant for the Veterans Administration Tommy Sowers, Lenny Wilf of the Friars Club and Cappy McCarr, co founder of the Lincoln Award.
Lenny Wilf, Cappy McGarr, Gavin DeGraw and Tommy Sowers Photo credit: Janet Donovan
“It was Abraham Lincoln in his second inaugural address that said,’Let’s honor and serve as those who served and their widow and orphan.’ And that was the beginning of the Veteran’s Affairs Administration,” said McGarr. “So this is the 150th anniversary of Lincoln’s 2nd inaugural; therefore we came up with the Lincoln Awards, the first national award to honor people who serve veterans and we have an outstanding group of ten companies and individuals to thank.”
Kayla Williams with her husband Brian McGough Photo credit: Janet Donovan
Kayla Williams is a former sergeant and Arabic linguist in a Military Intelligence company of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault). During her deployment to Iraq, Williams was at the forefront of troops’ interaction with Iraqis while also navigating the challenges of being part of the 15% of the Army that is female.
Williams is the author of Love My Rifle More Than You: Young and Female in the U.S. Army, a memoir about her experiences negotiating the changing demands on today’s military. She regularly speaks and writes about military and veterans’ issues for numerous media outlets.
“She is honored in the Artist’s category for the Lincoln Awards,” said McGough about his wife. “She’s written two books about her experiences. …her experience in war and her experience dealing with me. I got hurt in 2003 in the Army and we got married shortly after that, so it’s about her journey dealing with me and my journey to getting better.”
Stars Stand with Vets On the Red Carpet
