Where Peace Lives Board of Directors
Donna Clapp
Donna is a graduate from the New School in New York City with a Master's of Media Arts degree with an emphasis on documentary video. Her goal in getting her master's of Media Arts was to use media as a tool to shed light on people and organizations that are making a difference in the world. She is also a freelance writer for several magazines including Business Facilities and Jersey Shore Magazine. With a background in journalism, Donna was a magazine Editor in Chief for several different business magazines for 15 years. She also worked for three years for Family & Children’s Service, a private non-profit located in Monmouth County, NJ where she managed and coordinated more than 200 volunteers for the RSVP Reading Buddies program.
In 2005, just two years after joining the agency, the RSVP Reading Buddies won the 2005 Governor’s Volunteer Award for Education in New Jersey. And in 2006 the program received the Friends of Education award from the New Jersey Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. In that time period the Reading Buddies also doubled the number of schools for which they provided RIF funding for book distrbutions. Donna loves working with children and is excited to be providing conflict resolution and mediation training as part of the International Peace Mural Exchange Project, Where Art Lives. She's looking forward to seeing the amazing murals schools around the world will be creating using the activity planner she and the Jeffs have created.
Along with Advisory Council member Virginia Abubkr, a counselor at Conerly Road Elementary School, Donna recently developed another peace-building program for Where Peace Lives. Reel Peace: Kids Teaching Kids Peace Through Moviemaking, combines improvisational play acting, script writing and videotaping to train children to come up with creative ways to solves common problems they have in school and at home. She's thrilled to be using some of the skills she learned while getting her master's degree with conflict resolution activities to help kids learn to create a culture of peace in their schools, homes and communities.
Donna also holds the title of Executive Director for Where Peace Lives.
Contact: dclapp@wherepeacelives.org
Jeff Clapp
In early 2009 Jeff realized his lifelong passion of running his own design firm and created Creative Circle Studios LLC. He focuses primarily on developing web and marketing materials for small to mid size businesses. Jeff worked in publishing as an Creative Art Director for two national trade publications, Business Facilities and Today's Facility Manager magazines until early 2009. Prior to his position in New Jersey he spent three years working in advertising and corporate branding in New York City. A graduate of Syracuse University with a BFA in Illustration, Jeff has worked with all kinds of clients on everything from logos, branding, marketing, web design, illustration, to graphic design and television spots. He is also an accomplished professional fine artist and award winning member of the New Jersey Water Color Society.
There is one lyric that stands out for Jeff that he says communicates his deepest belief – "Imagine all the people living life in peace. You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us, and the world will be as one." from John Lennon's Imagine. "I'm inspired by all people", says Clapp. "If you want to know what the truth is for me, we are all connected. Hate and fear, in whatever form they show up in, are just self-serving mechanisms that are so limiting, produce nothing, and destroy the essence of what it is to have the gift of being here on the planet. I don't waste my time on hate or indulging in those conversations. I'm not ignorant, I see and know what is going on in the world, but I am not going to use my energy to resist it or resign to it. For me there is no separation at the core of who we are for one another. It is relating to people from this viewpoint and having that accessible for all people that I'm creating with what I do in life. If that is the state of the world we can create, then yes, anything is truly possible. I am only interested in building a culture of peace."
Contact: jclapp@wherepeacelives.org
Jeff Rudy
Jeff currently works for the Governor of New Jersey, John Corzines, campaign team. Jeff served an account manager for LearningExpress, LLC, a leader in providing interactive databases to public libraries, colleges and universities that helps people achieve their academic and career goals. The mission of LearningExpress is aligned with his passion in life: making a difference.
The weekend following the September 11th tragedy in New York City began a journey for Jeff that led to the founding of Where Peace Lives in 2006 with his partners Donna and Jeff Clapp. That weekend he was supposed to begin a 6-month leadership program in Landmark Education’s New York City Center in one of the towers. Instead he joined 400 people from Canada down the East Coast to Washington, D.C. in the organization’s New Jersey Center. At the end of the program, he took on being a Voice of Peace. After talking Peace for two years, he met the Clapp’s at a Landmark Education Seminar and began conversations that would lead incorporation of Where Peace Lives.
He began giving back to community as a Boy Scout working with a child with Muscular Dystrophy. The impact of that experience gave him a greater sense that that there always people out there less fortunate than himself.
A graduate of Santa Monica College, Jeff first career was as an award-winning sports editor for the Irvine World News. He established the Irvine World News Basketball Tournament to help raise funds for the community’s three high school sports programs. It is now in its 28th year.
In 1990 he was invited to become a member of the Rotary Club of Hillside, NJ. He served on the executive board as vice president and them as president. Rotary’s commitment to local communities as well as its global presence truly was inspirational and led to Jeff’s expanded view of the world.
Jeff was a founding member of the Young Leadership Division of the Jewish National fund of America in 1992, serving on the board through 1996. He was the National Chairperson for the annual Young Leadership Division trip to Israel in 1996. He also served as NJ’s regional president and a national board member through 2000. As a national board member Jeff played an important role in the transforming the organization to an accountable and fiscally transparent non-profit organization. He helped usher in new leadership both the executive board and the lay leadership.
It is his dream to empower all children to be a voice for peace in their own lives; families, schools, communities and the world. Jeff also is driven to make sure their voices are heard, altering the conversation for Peace being spoken by our world leaders.
He asks,”What would be different if our world leaders entered conversations to end conflicts only present to the impact on the children?”
Contact: jrudy@wherepeacelives.org
Other Board Members: (bios to come)
Jane Frotton
Joy Matthowdis
Janet Pallente
Advisory Council
Naomi Drew
Naomi Drew is recognized around the world as an expert on conflict resolution, peacemaking, and parenting. Her book, Learning the Skills of Peacemaking was one of the first to introduce peacemaking to public education. Hailed as visionary, her work has enabled educators, parents, and people of all ages to live these skills on a daily basis. In Hope and Healing: Peaceful Parenting an an Uncertain World and Peaceful Parents, Peaceful Kids, Ms. Drew helps parents do the most pressing job of our times: create peace. one family at a time. Her newest book, The Kids Guide to Working Out Conflicts: How to Keep Cool, Stay Safe, and Get Along, is designed to help middle-schoolers resist violence and bullying.
Contact: Naomi@LearningPeace.com
Dr. Chris Campisano
Dr. Christopher J. Campisano presently serves as the coordinator of higher education programs for the New Jersey State Department of Education. He earned his Doctor of Education Degree in Comparative and International Education at Teachers College, Columbia University in May of 1988. Dr. Campisano began his career as a secondary social studies teacher at North Brunswick Township High School and has taught graduate and undergraduate students at Rutgers University, the City University of New York, the College of New Jersey (formerly Trenton State College), and the University of Hawai’i. His twenty-six years in education have been dedicated to improving the lives of all students, regardless of race, gender, social class, disability, or English language proficiency and he has a proven record of establishing effective educational programs to better serve and meet the needs of all students.
Contact: christopher.campisano@doe.state.nj.us
Virginia Abu-Bakr
Guidance Counselor
Conerly Road School
Somerset, NJ
Pat Levy
Grant Writer
Red Bank, NJ
Sabina Campbell
Spanish Teacher/Multicultural Club
Communications High School
Wall, NJ
Jessica Walter
Educator for Autistic Children
Red Bank, NJ
Laura Petrovich-Cheney
Art Educator
VP AENJ Board of Directors
Asbury Park, NJ
Peter Cheney
Principal
Hope Academy, Asbury Park, NJ
Amy Faris
Product Demonstration
Liquitex Acrylics
Professional Artist, Middletown, NJ
Wendy Born Hollander
Professional Illustrator/Artist
Art Coordinator, Red Bank, NJ
Sean McCauliffe
Post Production Guru
Gizmo Productions, NYC, NY
Phil Ruffini
Nortel Telecommunications Manager
Venice, FL
