Edward R. Matthews, CEO of ADAPT Community Network announced its 2018 ADAPT Leadership Awards Gala will take place on Thursday, March 8th at Cipriani 42nd Street in New York City.
Judy Woodruff, Anchor and Managing Editor of the PBS NewsHour will host the event.
2018 ADAPT Leadership Award honorees include, Al Roker, Co-host and Weatherman of NBC’s Today Show and his wife Deborah Roberts, ABC News Correspondent for 20/20, Nightline, Good Morning America, and ABC World News Tonight with David Muir; The Hausman Family, one of the Founding families of United Cerebral Palsy of NYC; Marissa Shorenstein, President, Northeast, AT&T; and Amy Wright, Founder and CEO of Bitty & Beau’s Coffee, and 2017 CNN Hero of the Year.
2018 Co-Chairs of the gala are: James Hausman and Liz Cohen Hausman; James Kase and Helene Miller; Sabina McCarthy; and Alan Zack.
Honorary Chair of this year’s gala is Lynda Carter, Actress, Singer and Activist. Honorary Co-Chairs are Tamsen Fadal, Eight-time Emmy winning Anchor of PIX 11 News and Mike Woods, Meteorologist and Reporter FOX 5’s Good Day New York.
“We are honored to have such distinguished and deserving honorees for our inaugural ADAPT Leadership Awards,” says Edward R. Matthews, CEO of ADAPT Community Network. “The Hausman Family is the founding family of this organization. We are extremely proud to recognize their enormous achievements and contributions over four generations. I am personally grateful for their incredible support and encouragement during my almost 30 years here. Al Roker and Deborah Roberts are not only leaders in the media world but have worked for over two decades to help children and families from all walks of life including children with disabilities and are longtime supporters of ADAPT Community Network. We recognize Marissa Shorenstein for her leadership and important ongoing philanthropic work and for the role AT&T plays in innovative technology for people with disabilities. We are particularly pleased to honor parent, advocate, business leader and role model Amy Wright whose vision and courage as a mother of four children (two with disabilities) is a story of inspiration which has resonated and touched the lives of people around the world.”
Judy Woodruff is the anchor and managing editor of the PBS NewsHour. She is also a past Women Who Care honoree. Woodruff has covered politics and other news for more than four decades at CNN, NBC and PBS. For 12 years, Woodruff served as anchor and senior correspondent for CNN, where her duties included anchoring the weekday program, “Inside Politics.” At PBS from 1983 to 1993, she was the chief Washington correspondent for The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. From 1984-1990, she also anchored PBS’ award-winning weekly documentary series, “Frontline with Judy Woodruff.”
She is the recent recipient of the Cine Lifetime Achievement award, a Duke Distinguished Alumni award, the Edward R. Murrow Lifetime Achievement Award in Broadcast Journalism/Television, the University of Southern California Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism, the Al Neuharth/University of South Dakota Award for Excellence in Journalism and the Gaylord Prize for Excellence in Journalism and Mass Communications from the University of Oklahoma, among others.
Al Roker is currently the Co-host and Weatherman of NBC’s Today Show. As a host and weatherman of NBC’s Today Show, along with Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb, Al Roker has the undivided attention of the nation (over 32 million viewers per week) every weekday morning as America prepares for work. Spanning a 35-year plus career and a thirteen-time Emmy winner, Al conducts interviews with celebrities and newsmakers around the world and does a wide variety of segments on every imaginable subject.
Al is also an accomplished television producer. He is CEO of Al Roker Entertainment, Inc. (ARE); a thriving multimedia company involved in the development and production of network, cable, and home video. ARE produces programming for a diverse clientele including NBC News, MSNBC, Spike TV, Lifetime Television, A&E, The History Channel, E!, Discovery Networks, PBS, TV ONE, Oxygen, The Cartoon Network, The Weather Channel and NBC Television Stations Group.
As a leader in new media broadcasting, Al recently launched Roker Media (@RKRMedia), a creative consortium combining talent, production, amplification, and brand building for digital and live streaming platforms, leveraging audiences where they live online. Working with the latest media technology, Roker Media produces a new generation of shareable social video content for an on-the-go, mobile-first audience.
Al is a bestselling author with ten acclaimed books to his credit and just completed his first book for kids, “Al Roker’s Extreme Weather: Tornadoes, Typhoons, and Other Weather Phenomena” – released in August from Harper Collins. His mystery novel, “The Midnight Show Murders” is now being made into a TV movie for the Hallmark Channel, starring Holly Peete Robinson, coming 2018.
Deborah Roberts is an award winning ABC News Correspondent for 20/20, Nightline, Good Morning America, and ABC World News Tonight with David Muir. A media veteran, Roberts is a highly respected journalist who has traveled the world in her reporting. She has also served as substitute anchor for Good Morning America, World News Weekend and 20/20, as well as a co-host on The View.
Roberts’ long form reports on 20/20 have consistently produced extraordinary narratives such as an intimate profile of first lady Michelle Obama, first daughter Ivanka Trump and an in depth investigation into abuse within the Amish community. She has reported from Africa on children orphaned by the HIV/AIDS crisis and was part of the historic coverage of the inauguration of President Barack Obama.
Roberts has been awarded multiple Emmy awards for her international and national coverage of world events, including her poignant reporting on an Ethiopian American woman’s emotional journey back to her African village to discover her long lost mother.
Roberts is author of “Been There, Done That: Family Wisdom For Modern Times,” a book written with her husband, Al Roker. She makes her home in Manhattan with her husband and two children.
