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On March 27, the Chicago Province Justice & Peace Commission presented its first BridgeBuilder Award to Debra DePalma Youssef, Northbrook resident and chairperson of the Northbrook , Illinois Community Relations Commission. Appropriately, Divine Word International, Techny, was the venue for the award dinner and presentation, as well as for a day-long Vietnamese storytelling workshop and an evening storytelling concert. The award was instituted this year to recognize individuals who live and do outstanding work to build bridges of dialogue, cooperation and understanding among the diverse racial, ethnic, religious and cultural groups in the Chicago North Shore suburbs. By instituting this award, the Chicago Province Justice and Peace Commission is seeking to raise up models of success that represent bridges of communication and hope, and to demonstrate to young people “heroes” of today who are taking a stand, making a difference and building bridges for the good of all. Coworkers and neighbors in Northbrook’s civic and religious communities who nominated DePalma Youssef for the award praised her as a bridgebuilder, a doer and a healer. In 2000, she was instrumental in the creation of 2000 Fest: A Multicultural Block Party. She organized the highly successful Inter-Faith Walk as part of Northbrook’s Centennial in 2001, which drew more than 300 people to visit 20 houses of worship and learn about one another’s faith expressions. More recently, she organized a series of inter-religious dialogues between the Islamic Cultural Center of Greater Chicago and Congregation Beth Shalom of Northbrook. She has also worked with the Northbrook Arts Commission, the Northern Suburban Special Education District, the Northbrook Community Network and the Northbrook School District No. 28 and its Parent Teacher Organization. Among those who paid tribute to DePalma Youssef were State Representative Elaine Nekritz, officials and members of the Islamic Cultural Center of Greater Chicago, members of Northbrook’s Human Relations Commission, Judith Hughes, chair of Northbrook’s Arts Commission, Susan Carrington, co-host of two Northbrook Cable TV programs and a dozen high school students and their parents from Catholic Schools Opposing Racism. State Representative Elaine Nekritz wrote that DePalma Youssef “continues to work for cultural diversity in Northbrook. Currently, the Community Relations Commission is focusing on providing housing opportunities in Northbrook to people of all backgrounds. The work she has done and continues to do in bringing people of all faiths and cultures together truly reflects the values of the BridgeBuilder Award.”
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 Fr. Mark Weber, SVD, Chairman of the Chicago Province Justice & Peace Commission, Debra DePalma Youssef and Fr. Derek Simons, SVD Executive Director of Angels Studio As she accepted the award, DePalma Youssef said, “Volunteer work will enrich your life in every way. I am blessed to live in such a wonderful community, with so many dedicated people—from community leaders to teachers to clergy members to citizens from all walks of life, all of whom come from many different faiths and backgrounds and from all age groups. All these people make a difference in our community and beyond.” “For a long time now I have believed that to ask, ‘What can one person do?’ is really a dangerous myth. It keeps people from being motivated to take action. I have realized that if you do something courageous, and I see you do it, I might be encouraged to try that thing myself, or I might tell a few friends about the courageous thing you did, and one of them might do it too. And before you know it, you might have lots of people doing something courageous that can make a big difference in lots of people’s lives.” “We all make hundreds of choices every day. Some are big—such as what we want to be when we grow up or where we want to go to college—but we also make many smaller choices every day. We make decisions about whom we wave to, whom we help, whom we hold the door for, whom we become impatient with, which stories we choose to repeat, and which ones we don’t bother to repeat. We choose whether to call a TV or radio station or write to a newspaper about something they did that was biased. We choose whether to vote or call an elected official about an issue that is important to us. I think we can all be more mindful of the smaller choices we make every day. And we should remember—especially in the area of diversity and inclusion—those small choices can have a very powerful impact.” “The answer to the age-old question, ‘What can one person do?’ is: ‘A tremendous amount!’ You can never know how your small step might affect others. Only God knows. So, if you see or hear something that moves you, do something about it or tell someone about it.”
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