18 Jan 2012
Q&A: First Freedom Center Gala
A few members of the Southern Virginia University faculty, staff and student body had the opportunity to attend the First Freedom Center 2012 Awards Gala last week. At the gala, four awardees were named: Canon Andrew White, Marc D. Stern, Robert M. O'Neill and Bishop Peter James Lee. I sat down with Garret Bernal, a business major from Seattle, Wash., and one of the attendees, to gather more information on the event.
Q: First off, what was this event that you attended?Garret: It was the First Freedom Center gala. First Freedom Center is an international organization that awards VIPs around the world for significant contributions for promoting religious freedom. And so Thursday night [Jan. 12] we went to the gala, or the ceremony that happened in 2012, and four people were given awards.
Q: Why did you go?Garret: Glade Knight, who is the chairman of Southern Virginia University’s board of trustees is also one of the chairs of First Freedom Center, and so because he also happens to be a major donor to First Freedom Center, he invited 20 people to the gala. He donated money to the First Freedom Center under the name of the school and invited representatives of Southern Virginia and put all of us at a table and had a big Southern Virginia sign and Southern Virginia stuff everywhere, so he was really promoting the school.Q: You must have felt pretty excited being one of the people invited to go.Garret: Yes, it was quite a privilege to be invited to go to such a special event. It’s not often you get exposure to so many incredible people. Q: Do you feel you were received well?Garret: Absolutely. It was great. Like I said we got recognized as students. It was great because we got to meet some of the people that were being awarded, one of which was the recipient of the international award. His name was Canon Andrew White. He is the vicar of St. George’s Anglican Church in Baghdad. He’s done a lot in the Middle East to promote religious freedom. You could just feel his presence when you talked to him, it was cool.(Post by Mika McIntosh '13. Photo by Taylor Dabney, Courtesy of the First Freedom Center, Copyright 2012.)
