Campus Life

Online Newsletter: http://www.alumni.nd.edu/news_publ/newsletter.html

Mary Brosnahan Sullivan '83, of New York City, was presented with the Dr. Thomas A. Dooley Award on Jan. 25. Mary has served as executive director for New York City's Coalition for the Homeless since 1990. Under her leadership, the organization has increased its budget by $7 million, with an additional 72 staff members. The coalition is responsible for numerous programs that serve more than 3,000 New Yorkers every day, including a food program providing 800 meals a night, a summer camp for 400 homeless children, rental assistance and job readiness training. Other programs that have been instituted under Mary's leadership include crisis intervention services, such as treatments for drug addiction, housing for AIDS victims and legal services for the disadvantaged.

Mary has also worked tirelessly to ensure that the rights and liberties of the homeless are upheld by New York and its civic leaders. She fought the city's policy of forcing homeless persons to work for their beds and also brought to light the abuses enacted by several Manhattan businesses on their homeless employees. These and countless other efforts have earned Mary

the respect and admiration of many in the New York community, where she has earned the reputation of being both sweet and tough, a woman with a real "passion for compassion."