For the past 11 years, the Family Defense Center has enjoyed significant support from friends in Minnesota. Starting in 2007, the Center has held annual events in the Twin Cities, with recent events featuring family defense and innocence work done at the William Mitchell Law School Clinic (2014) and by the Wisconsin Innocence Project (2015). Thanks to our Champion Board Member Elizabeth Larsen, these events have been held for the past three years at the lovely Minikahda Club. This year, on April 27, the Center is continuing that tradition and expanding its event to include a joint program with the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota.
The primary reason for the joint event is that both organizations share a lead donor, Paul Redleaf, who turns 85 in late April this year. Paul and Rhoda Redleaf, the parents of the Center’s founder and executive director, provided five years of essential seed money to start the Center and have continued to be major donors since the Center was founded. The Redleaf Family Foundation, which is the foundation Paul Redleaf heads, has made annual grants of $35,000-40,000 since 2010. Without the major support of Paul Redleaf, it is fair to say that the Center would not exist nor would it have thrived and grown.
The ACLU of Minnesota is also eager to honor Paul Redleaf this year, for not only has he been a leading board member of that organization for many years, but he also made a groundbreaking major contribution to start its racial justice project in Mankato, Minnesota. The project that Paul and Rhoda supported has been viewed as a national model.
The Redleaf Family Foundation and Paul Redleaf in particular, have also been instrumental in creating internships for the Center, the ACLU of Minnesota, and numerous other social justice organizations. First at Carleton College (Diane Redleaf’s alma mater) and now at Sarah Lawrence (Rhoda Redleaf’s alma mater), Paul and Rhoda have supported three full-time summer or winter term interns each year. The Center plans to host another Sarah Lawrence intern through this program in 2016.
The event honoring Paul Redleaf will include two luminary law professors in a brief award presentation. One of the special law professor guests is Professor Michele Goodwin, Professor of Law at the University of California at Irvine. Professor Goodwin first got to know the Center through our Champion Board member Professor Dorothy Roberts. At the Center’s suggestion, Paul Redleaf approached Professor Goodwin while she was a law professor at the University of Minnesota about joining the ACLU of Minnesota board. Professor Goodwin now serves on the national ACLU board. The second guest is Burt Neuborne, former national legal director of the ACLU and Professor of Law at New York University Law School, the only other person to have received the ACLU’s Presidential Award.
The Family Defense Center is presenting Paul Redleaf with the specially dedicated Catalyst Award for his instrumental role in the founding and sustaining the work of the Center.
The event begins at 5:30 on April 27. For more information contact Samantha at (312) 251-9800 ext. 28 or samantha@familydefensecenter.org. To RSVP for this special event, go to www.honoringpaul.eventbrite.com.