Redstone commemorates women’s right to vote

The Redstone Rocket
Published Aug. 29, 2016
Huntsville Center Commander Col. John Hurley presents Lee Marshall, Kids to Love Foundation CEO, with a token of appreciation for her Women’s Equality Day remarks focusing on foster children who strive for equality with the foundation’s help.  Huntsville Center sponsored the Team Redstone observance celebrating the ratification of the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution granting women the right to vote and the contributions women have made toward full equality in the United States.

Huntsville Center Commander Col. John Hurley presents Lee Marshall, Kids to Love Foundation CEO, with a token of appreciation for her Women’s Equality Day remarks focusing on foster children who strive for equality with the foundation’s help. Huntsville Center sponsored the Team Redstone observance celebrating the ratification of the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution granting women the right to vote and the contributions women have made toward full equality in the United States.

“The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”

As the country prepares for a presidential election with its first female major party candidate, it is easy to forget that women have held voting rights for less than a century. 

Members of Team Redstone gathered Aug. 23 to celebrate Women’s Equality Day and the 96th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote. The Corps of Engineers’ Engineering and Support Center, Huntsville, hosted the event at Bob Jones Auditorium, with musical entertainment provided by the Huntsville Center Ensemble and the Army Materiel Command Band. The keynote address was given by Emmy-winning journalist Lee Marshall, who spoke of her work as a foster child advocate.

“I have two daughters, but I have a lot more children than that,” Marshall told the crowd.

She shared about her decision to leave her career as a television newscaster to devote her time to her family and to her organization, Kids to Love (kidstolove.org). A former foster child herself, Marshall felt a calling to grow the nonprofit that saw its start in her garage. This year, Kids to Love expanded to also serve Georgia and Mississippi, in addition to Alabama and Tennessee, and provided 5,168 backpacks full of school supplies across those four states to kids in need. The organization also started a technical training program this year and is preparing to open its first group home for teenage girls.

Marshall said that like the women who fought for equality a century ago, her organization is fighting for equality for foster children – children who don’t have a voice. She quoted a sobering statistic that 75-80 percent of foster children end up in the prison system and that Kids to Love is working to reduce those numbers. Through the KTECH program, students learn applicable mechanical, electrical and computerized technology skills for the manufacturing industries. The program which started in 2016 has a 100 percent employment rate for their graduates.

“We aren’t just giving our students equipment to work on,” Marshall said. “We give them the best to work on, because they deserve it.”

Marshall extended a challenge to those in the audience – a request to look around the community and make their own difference.

“I want to challenge you to find your passion to give back,” she said. “Let this next half of your life focus not on success, but on significance.”

A musical tribute was performed by the Huntsville Center Ensemble in honor of 37-year-old mother and engineer Maj. Lisa Jaster of the Corps of Engineers Huntsville Center, who in 2015 became the first female Army Reserve officer to graduate from Ranger School. Jaster is only the third woman to earn her Ranger tab after the ban on women in combat was lifted last year.

As part of the observance, an essay and static display contest was held with the essay winners as follows: Stephen D. Cooper, Army Contracting Command, first place; Sylvesta Lee, Missile Defense Agency, second; and Viola Lipscomb, Aviation and Missile Command, third.

The display winners were Engineering and Support Center, Huntsville, first place; Space and Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Command, second; and the Missile Defense Agency, third.