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East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania selected Reverend Jeffrey Brown, founder of Rebuilding Every City Around Peace (RECAP), to be the keynote speaker for the 2018 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Breakfast. The 21^st annual celebration honoring Dr. King is scheduled for Monday, January 15, 2018, at 8 a.m. in the Mattioli Recreation Center on ESU’s campus. The theme of this year’s breakfast is “The Beloved Community.”

Rev. Brown is a nationally recognized leader and expert in gang, youth and urban violence reduction and coalition building. He is the founder of RECAP, a national initiative organized to assist cities in building better partnerships between the faith-based community, government and law enforcement agencies in an effort to reduce gang violence. He is also one of the co-founders of the Boston Ten Point Coalition, a faith-based group that was an integral part of the “Boston Miracle,” a process where the city experienced a 79 percent decline in violent crime in the ’90s, and spawned countless urban collaborative efforts in subsequent years that followed the Boston Ceasefire and faith-based model. Rev. Brown consults with municipalities and police departments on issues around youth violence and community mobilization, and provides expertise to Fortune 25 corporations on collaborative leadership and managing change.

The subject of a Harvard Business School case study on his efforts, Rev. Brown is an integral part of three other case studies from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He is the recipient of numerous local and national awards and citations. He is the author of a forthcoming book titled The Courage to Listen, and has partnered with Paramount Pictures and the writing team of actor/writer Chadwick Boseman and Logan Coles on a feature film based on his experiences.

Brown graduated from East Stroudsburg State College in 1982. He served as the first African American student body president. Brown pastored the Union Baptist Church in Cambridge, Mass. for 22 years, has spoken and lectured widely, and is known for his fiery and inspiring messages. A resident of the Dorchester area of Boston, Mass., Rev. Brown has three grown children.

Reserve a Space Today

Reservations are now being taken for the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Breakfast at a cost of $40 per person, $15 per student and $300 for a table of eight. Proceeds will benefit the Gertrude Mary Smith Boddie Scholarship Fund at ESU, which provides financial assistance to undergraduate students of color. In 1904 Ms. Boddie was the first African-American student to graduate from what was then known as East Stroudsburg State Normal School and ultimately became East Stroudsburg University in 1983.

As a result of the breakfast, three Boddie Scholarship awardees will each receive a $3,080 scholarship award for the Spring 2018 semester. Scholarship winners are selected based on their ability to demonstrate, through community service work or university involvement, a commitment to Dr. King’s philosophy of non-violence, equality, justice, cultural diversity, and a respect for humanity.

Breakfast organizers are asking regional business organizations to consider becoming a sponsor of this community event. For more information on sponsorship opportunities, call the ESU Foundation at 570-422-7000.

For more information about the Celebration Breakfast or for special accommodations, contact Juanita Jenkins, director of multicultural affairs, at 570-422-3896 or jjenkins20@esu.edu.