The California Social Welfare Archives hosted its annual awards luncheon on April 6 at the Galen Center to honor founding president and CEO of the Skirball Cultural Center Uri D. Herscher, social work leader Suzanne Dworak-Peck and longtime educator June Brown for their commitment to the advancement of social welfare.

USC School of Social Work dean Marilyn Flynn presented Herscher with the George D. Nickel Award for Outstanding Contributions to Social Welfare.

"He has led the way in establishing the Skirball as a pre-eminent community gathering place featuring world-class programming and providing the opportunity for people to make meaningful connections across generations, communities, histories, ideas and forms of creative expression," Flynn said.

Herscher, who delivered the keynote address, spoke about his family, who inspired him to lead a life dedicated to social welfare. He talked about his grandmothers, one of whom refused to leave her home during World War II without a child she had taken in, and both were subsequently killed at the Auschwitz concentration camp, and his uncles, who were founders of the communal kibbutz system in Israel.

"I have only allowed myself to be honored once before because I'm not worthy of honor," Herscher said. "People who shape me are worthy of honor."

Herscher was born in Tel Aviv and immigrated to the United States in the mid-1950s. He graduated from the University of California at Berkeley, where he founded Cal Camp, a summer camp that continues to serve underprivileged children in the San Francisco Bay Area. He became an ordained rabbi at Hebrew Union College in 1970 and began conceptualizing the Skirball Cultural Center in the early 1980s before being named its founding president and CEO in 1996. He also recently completed a five-year term on the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission.

"The Skirball has created a Jewish entity that's not just for Jews," Herscher said. "We're a cultural center that applies Jewish values to the community. Creating a safe place for people to gather is a contribution in itself."

After the keynote address, Jim Kelly, president of the National Association of Social Workers, presented the George D. Nickel Award for Outstanding Professional Services by a Social Worker to Suzanne Dworak-Peck.

"Suzanne is a social worker's social worker," Kelly said. "She is always level-headed, she always looks for the big picture, and she always does the right thing."

Dworak-Peck is past president of both the National Association of Social Workers and the California chapter of NASW, where she chaired the Political Action, Legislative and Koshland Awards Committee, as well as served on the Social Work Image Council. She is the founder of the NASW Communications Network, Inc., which provides the media and entertainment industries centralized information and resources for social issues and recognizes outstanding portrayals of social workers. She is also past president of the International Federation of Social Workers and is currently IFSW's first, and only, ambassador. She has taught at the USC School of Social Work, where she also served on the Board of Councilors, and held appointments at the UCLA School of Social Welfare and within the California State University system. Currently, Dworak-Peck chairs the Campaign Advisory Committee for the NASW Foundation's National Social Work Public Education Campaign.

The Frances Lomas Feldman Excellence in Education Award, named after the Archives' late founder who taught social welfare history, policy and administration at the USC School of Social Work for 36 years, was presented by Feldman's daughter, Dona Munker, to June Brown.

Brown, an associate professor emerita of the USC School of Social Work, began her teaching career at the school in 1968 under a National Institute of Mental Health grant. She became an instructor in 1969 teaching in the master and doctoral programs, and she rose to the position of assistant dean for academic affairs in 1987. Over her many years in service to the school, Brown has served on the Dean's Advisory Committee, the Committee on Grading Standards, the Curriculum Policy Review Committee, Promotion and Tenure Committee, the Re-Accreditation Task Force and Admissions Committee, among many others.

Established in 1979, the California Social Welfare Archives maintains one of the most extensive and complete collections of California social welfare history. The volunteer-based group of social workers, librarians, archivists and other community leaders collects, preserves and makes available historically significant information that documents the emergence of social problems and the development of social welfare answers in California. The organization conducts its activities under the auspices of the USC School of Social Work, with its collections housed in the university library's Department of Special Collections located in Doheny Memorial Library.