MAVIN Foundation
Press Release – 06 November 2001
NEWS RELEASE
06 November 2001
Contact: Yasmine Tarhouni, Director of Public Relations
Ph: 206.622.7101, Fx: 206.622.2231
MATT KELLEY AWARDED “POINTS OF LIGHT” DISTINCTION BY PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH
(Seattle, WA) Matt Kelley, The Mavin Foundation’s 22-year-old founder, President and C.E.O., has been awarded a “Points of Light” award by President George W. Bush for “…helping to solve serious social problems through volunteer service.”
In 1998, as a freshman at Wesleyan University, Matt founded MAVIN, the only internationally acclaimed magazine celebrating multiracial and transracially adopted people. In 1999, he coordinated the 3rd Pan Collegiate Conference on the Mixed Race Experience and taught a course at Connecticut’s Wesleyan University titled, “Racially Mixed in the U.S.A” the following year. For his innovative approach to race and diversity issues, he has been featured in over 200 newspaper, magazine and television features spanning four continents, including CNN, Newsweek, The Los Angeles Times, and USA Today. Seattle magazine named Matt one of “9 to Watch In The Next Century,” Teen People magazine named him a “Local Hero” and he was named a “Race Scholar” by The TRIBES Project.
Matt also serves as Vice President of the Association of MultiEthnic Americans (AMEA), and on the Board of Directors for the Central District Forum for Arts and Ideas, a Seattle-based not-for-profit celebrating African-American culture. He has donated thousands of volunteer hours to organizations like the Seattle-based, Childhaven, which serves underprivileged children who come from backgrounds of abuse and neglect, and the Seattle Art Museum’s development initiative for communities of color.
The Mavin Foundation is a 501-(c)(3) non-profit organization that is redefining diversity by celebrating mixed-race people and families. In 2000, nearly seven million Americans were able to check multiple races on their census forms for the first time. In cities like Seattle, WA, San Antonio, TX and Sacramento, CA, nearly one in six babies born is multiracial. Mavin is committed to creating exciting projects that raise awareness of this rapidly emerging community. Our innovative projects like MAVIN magazine are providing a unique forum to increase awareness of the changing face of our multicultural society.
For more information, please visit www.mavinfoundation.org.
The MAVIN Foundation
600 1st Avenue, Suite 501
Seattle, WA 98104-2229
Ph 206 622.7101
Fx 206 622.2231
mavinfoundation.org