By Janis Siegel, JTNews Correspondent
Honoring Tom O’Keefe, founder of Seattle-based Tully’s Coffee, with its 2002 Torch of Liberty Award was a natural choice for the Pacific Northwest Region of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
Tully’s Coffee and the ADL partnered on this year’s Reducing Adolescent Prejudice (R.A.P.) Conference which included close to 350 students and educators in the Puget Sound. R.A.P. is a 15-year-old, anti-bias education program designed for high school students and teachers. Tully’s will also be involved in the next R.A.P. Conference, scheduled to take place in fall 2002.
Gov. Gary Locke and the ADL’s senior associate director, Peter Willner, were two of the distinguished guests in attendance at the Four Seasons Olympic Hotel to honor Tully’s Coffee and speak to the broader issues of fighting prejudice, discrimination and bigotry that have characterized the ADL’s mission since 1913.
Gov. Locke recently signed House Bill 2505, sponsored by the ADL, which makes it a crime to conduct training in Washington State with the knowledge or intent to commit civil disorder. Locke has also worked closely with the ADL on issues of security for Jewish institutions in Washington.
Also in attendance were Frank Chopp and state Sen. Adam Kline; state representatives Shay Schual-Burke and Al O’Brien; University of Washington president, Dr. Richard McCormick; Charles Mandigo, Special Agent in Charge for the FBI; Mark Schuster, vice chair of the ADL Board and dinner chair; and master of ceremonies Larry Benaroya.
“It’s tough to be receiving an award for something we should all be doing anyway,” O’Keefe said. “People should be taking care of each other because it’s all about relationships. It’s not just about tonight but it’s about all nights like this. At Tully’s, we focus on four points — coffee, people, our stores and the community. I just urge people to do something. We tell our people to get involved.”
Tully’s Coffee and its 145 retail locations throughout Washington, California, Idaho and the Pacific Rim have been closely involved with the health and welfare of children through its work with the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, Boys & Girls Clubs and Special Olympics.
The company also encourages its employees to become involved in their respective communities by giving both their time and money to organizations that make a positive impact in the lives of children.
“We want to be involved with kids’ activities and public awareness,” O’Keefe added. “Education of the public is just as important as researchers finding a gene. People need to communicate with each other. All of these organizations are multi-faceted and there are so many ways that people can be involved.”
Both the ADL and Tully’s believe that education is a fundamental responsibility of a community and both demonstrate that commitment by sponsoring programs and being strongly involved in children’s lives. The R.A.P. Conference is one of many educational programs the ADL offers to children of all ages in the community.
“Our goals go hand in hand with Tully’s in terms of their mission for corporate philanthropy,” said Brian Goldberg, regional director of the ADL’s Pacific Northwest regional office in Seattle.
“Our World of Difference Program is the model for the R.A.P. Conferences,” Goldberg said. “It is very comprehensive and deals with many forms of prejudice. We start by raising consciousness about the issues of racism, homophobia, anti-Semitism and stereotyping. Then, before they leave, the schools develop an action plan and file it with the ADL. We help them put their plan together, write grants, and we also provide them materials.”
The ADL would like to increase the reach of the program to include schools from Bellingham to Olympia. Partnerships like the one they have with Tully’s Coffee will make this goal possible.
“We’ve talked to Tully’s about expanding their role in the program,” Goldberg said. “We’re talking to Tully’s and we’re also looking at other Washington-based corporations that have shown interest in our youth like Washington Mutual and Nordstrom.”
In addition to expanding individual programs like the R.A.P. Conference, the ADL has expanded its staff in the Seattle office to increase community participation and to help monitor the 41 extremist hate groups that have been identified in the Northwest. The Seattle office has also been the recipient of increased attention from the national ADL office due to a rising concern about extremism in general.
“Education is the antidote because children are not born bigoted,” said Willner, echoing the evening’s theme from the national office’s perspective. “We are very pleased that Tom O’Keefe is being honored and we’re very proud of what Brian Goldberg and his staff are doing in this office. We intend to invest our resources here in the Northwest. Clearly, the Northwest is one of the more focused areas of extremism. The ADL has a responsibility to protect the Jewish community here.”
According to research from the national ADL office, a higher proportion of kids are buying and getting involved with violent video games and spending time in hate-filled chat rooms while they are still in high school. Willner sees how the exposure to hateful ideas in a child’s younger years can play itself out after graduation.
“We are very concerned about what’s happening on college campuses, particularly at San Francisco State College and the University of California at Berkeley,” Willner said. “I think we have a crisis on college campuses. Our Internet monitoring unit sees a high proportion of high school kids in these chat rooms. We believe that the (R.A.P.) program heightens the awareness of kids. We start at the preschool level and have impacted about 350,000 kids since 1985. We at the ADL have three obligations — to investigate, to legislate and to educate.”