Judy and I were very honored to be chosen as the recipients of the John C. Whitehead Award at this year’s IRC annual dinner. We had the privilege of knowing John for many years and were great admirers of his accomplishments as both a businessman and as a humanitarian. While we are sorry that this year’s dinner could not be held because of the pandemic, we are very pleased that so many of the organization’s friends and supporters contributed to the event and allowed IRC to retain the funds for its important mission. We thank all of our own friends who lent their support to the dinner.
Our involvement with IRC goes back many years as we gradually became more and more aware of the desperate plight of people around the world that were suffering from the terrible fate of being driven from their home countries by human conflict or natural disaster. This realization made us appreciate how much we took our own liberty and security for granted and how awful it must be to suddenly give up everything one has achieved and be forced to relocate to an uncertain future. We discovered IRC through John Whitehead and our friend Katherine Farley and became regular donors to a cause that we think is both admirable and very well administered.
IRC is the perfect definition of a private/public partnership. Private money and the ingenuity that private involvement that can bring, coupled with monetary and moral support from governments around the world, is the best possible answer to trying to help the more than 70 million people around the world who have been driven from their homes. We are very impressed with the leadership of David Miliband, his outstanding staff, and the many dedicated IRC workers around the world, and we are proud to be supporters of this vibrant and meaningful organization.
Thank you, again, for choosing us as this year’s honorees and we look forward to attending many annual dinners in the future.
Learn more about Judith and Russell Carson and the IRC's Rescue Dinner 2020.