As we usher in the new year, I’d like to share with you some highlights from 2017, a year of tremendous growth at The Russell Berrie Foundation. Please click here to learn how we have strengthened our team, committed to two new strategies for our work in Israel and expanded our grant-making, awarding almost 200 grants and supporting groundbreaking institutions and visionary leaders who are making a difference in the lives of others.

Celebrate a local New Jersey hero by nominating them by February 16 for the Russ Berrie Making a Difference Award. Every year, the Russell Berrie Foundation honors "unsung" New Jersey heroes who have made an uncommon contribution to the common good. Up to 11 extraordinary people can receive this award, with the top three awards at $50,000, $35,000 and $25,000. Honor your hero today!

Dr. Rudolph L. Leibel, co-director of the Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center at Columbia University Medical Center, has joined with other leading members of the Endocrine Society to call for more research aimed at understanding the underlying mechanisms that make it difficult to maintain long-term weight loss. The scientific statement, published online in the Endocrine Society's journal, Endocrine Reviews, will appear in the journal's August issue. 

David Rosenblatt, an entrepreneur who co-founded Israel's leading solar energy developer, Arava Power Company, has joined the Russell Berrie Foundation's Board of Trustees. Rosenblatt, who has experience working with companies at all stages of development and across a range of industries, has held numerous leadership positions in the N.J. Jewish community. He is a 2008 graduate of the Berrie Fellows Leadership Program. 

A dozen of New Jersey's most inspiring unsung heroes were recognized for their compassion and concern for others when they were named as recipients of the 2017 Russ Berrie Making a Difference Awards. The 21st annual awards, accompanied by cash prizes ranging from $5,000 to $50,000, were announced at a ceremony at Ramapo College on May 5.

Leymah Gbowee, the Liberian peace activist and Nobel Peace Laureate who will deliver this year's John Paul II Lecture on Interfaith Understanding, "embodies the power of interfaith work," Angelica Berrie writes in OnFaith.

Supported by a gift from the Russell Berrie Foundation, the Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center has launched a multidisciplinary Obesity Research Initiative to study the relationship between the brain and metabolic disorders such as obesity and diabetes.