Jan Sanders

Lifetime Peacemaker Award:
Jan Sanders

 

Jan Sanders has been a grassroots community organizer for decades. An educator at heart, she taught fifth grade in the public schools (DISD) and went on to design courses for community education. She has applied her Master’s degree in TV, Film & Broadcast to her advocacy work (producing televising sessions for conferences, a voter education video, a video dramatization of domestic violence and how it can be dealt with), and more. She facilitated the League of Women Voters’ use of Community Access channels on cable TV when she headed up the program for the whole city. She taught government at Southern Methodist University and workshops on advocacy, citizenship, and politics to myriad local congregations, schools, and community organizations, including the Dallas Peace and Justice Center.

One of the earliest members of the Dallas Peace Center, she taught courses in nonviolence and courses in racism, helped organize events, participated in nonviolent direct actions and was involved in countless facets of the organization.

The widow of U.S. Justice Barefoot Sanders, Jan worked as an advocate for the right to vote, including registration drives (which she first started doing when there was a poll tax), work on the Voter ID Law. She served many years as an election judge and created a training curriculum for poll workers, poll watchers, and others. The League of Women Voters honored her with the Susan B. Anthony Award to “recognize her independence, persistence, determination and dedication to obtaining equal rights for all.”

She has been a staunch advocate for Women’s Rights, working on issues such as equal pay, domestic violence, and rape. She was an early member of the Women’s Center of Dallas and has worked with Peacemaker’s Inc.

Jan co-founded and created the original infrastructure of what has become VolunteerNow, a service to recruit and match volunteers with existing opportunities and agencies:“While many nonprofit organizations support one or two critical causes, we recruit volunteers for all nonprofits and all causes that strive to make the world a better place. VolunteerNow connects nonprofits - large and small - with the volunteer workforce needed to fulfill their missions in education, health, hunger, homelessness, social services, animal welfare, and the arts - among so many others.” (/www.volnow.org).

She currently serves on the Advisory Council of the Dallas Peace and Justice Center.

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