October 4, 2008 -- Annual Gala honored...

Don DeMarco, a pro-integrative advocate and intergroup practitioner, with more than 40-yearsof urban and suburban experience in intentional integration. As a municipal employee for Shaker Heights and Toledo, OH, Park Forest and Maywood, IL and Jackson, MI and a consultant for numerous other jurisdictions, neighborhoods and non-profit organizations, he designed and led enforcement aspects of fair housing.       Since 1992, he has held several staff and board jobs for Fund for an OPEN Society including click for morehis work with the formation of the South Orange/Maplewood Community Coalition on Race, where he spent more than ten years as an advisor and consultant.  Along with OPEN’s Executive Director, Barbara Heisler Williams and Program Associate, Emilio Pannucci, he continues to aid in furthering Coalition interests. OPEN is a Philadelphia-based one-of-a-kind, national non-profit equal opportunity company founded in 1975 by James Farmer and Morris Milgram.      Don has offered the Coalition organizing know-how and consultation services on working intentionally to promote and sustain robust and racially inclusive markets for housing, schools and civic life.       Don and his interracial family are Philadelphia residents in a neighborhood where the family represents a pro-integrative presence.