Rockford, Ill., Jan 14, 2010 / 01:06 am
The January Life Breakfast group in Rockford, Illinois will hold a Respect Life Dinner on Friday to benefit the local 40 Days for Life campaign. Several local pro-life leaders will receive awards at the Friday evening event.
The White Rose Award for students or teens who demonstrate “outstanding activism” on pro-life issues will go to Jessica Foti and Theresa Gwardys, a press release from the January Life Breakfast (JLB) reports. The two serve as co-presidents of Voice for the Unborn, the pro-life student club at Boylan Catholic High School.
The Breakfast will bestow on Dr. Brian and Sandra Knabe and the Knabe family the Family Heritage Award, which recognizes families who reflect the “life ideal” by “opening their hearts to children.”
The JLB was founded 14 years ago by Lutherans for Life and Kent and Jean Heise. Mrs. Heise is President of the Haven Network for Perinatal Death and Bereavement and a leader, speaker and activist in the pro-life and pro-family movement, a JLB press release says.
The Friday dinner is sponsored by the Respect Life Office of the Catholic Diocese of Rockford, Rockford Area Lutherans for Life, the World Congress of Families and The Howard Center for Family Religion & Society.
The JLB has scheduled next year’s event for Jan. 13, 2011.
Additionally, the JLB announced an upcoming roundtable lunch with Nigerian pro-life leader Dr. Theresa Okafor. The lunch, presented by the Howard Center, will be held on Feb. 11 at Rockford’s University Club. Its topic will be “Pro-Life Lessons that Africa Can Teach America.”