Marguerite Chandler, a member of Newtown Quaker Meeting and former candidate for congress will speak about the importance of Mother Earth to the Newtown Meeting Adult Class on Mother’s Day at 9:45 a.m. on Sunday, May 8, at the historic Quaker Meetinghouse at 219 Court Street. Meeting for Worship in the manner of Friends will follow at 11 a.m. The public is invited.
Marguerite Chandler’s topic will be “Mother Earth: Reliance and Possibility” in the face of the 2030 deadline to begin to reverse global warming.
Chandler says, “In the face of an existential crisis, individual actions are not enough. Systemic changes must happen too. Yet we must learn to act in faith with joy. Quakers have a long history of speaking truth to power and finding a way where there is no way. Come and see what’s possible and the strength we can draw from each other when we stand together—and let us see what love can do.”
There will also be a display of “green” consumer goods for the bathroom (mostly comparison of T-paper made with recycled paper content or bamboo (“the issue with tissue”) and the impact of our T-paper choice on the Boreal forest (more important than the Amazon for sequestering carbon), items for cat poop and dog poop, and kitchen items.
Marguerite Chandler’s mufti-faceted career includes leadership roles in business, charitable work, civic activity, running for political office, and education. She has been recognized for her contributions in all of them.
Among the 17 awards and honors Chandler has received are: 1987 Presidential End Hunger Award(President Reagan); 1983 Woman of the Year (Women’s Resource Center); 1985 Citizen of the Year(Greater Somerset County NJ Chamber of Commerce); 1987 Brotherhood Sisterhood Award(National Conference of Christians and Jews); 1987 Women’s Network Award (New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley); 2005 NJ Historical Commission Award. She was a 2012 TEDx speaker (Cape May, NJ) and has been listed in Who’s Who in America since 1989.
Professionally, Marguerite Chandler has been President of Edmar Corporation (former owner of Central Jersey Industrial Park, Bound Brook, NJ), Principal of M. Chandler Associates (Organizational Development Consulting); Instructor, Parent Effectiveness Training (P.E.T.); and more recently a Professional Life Coach.
Chandler has been a Peace Corps Volunteer, Guatemala, (1966-68), a Volunteer for the Missionaries of Charity, Calcutta, India (1981); President of the Association of New Jersey Recyclers; President of the New Jersey Council of Churches; Chairman of the Board of Friends Retirement Concepts, Inc., a Quaker-directed Continuing Care Retirement Community, and President of the Bound Brook Middlesex (NJ) Rotary Club.
Marguerite Chandler received a BS in Accounting from Syracuse University, an MA from the Graduate School of Political Management, George Washington University, specialized training in personal coaching, most interestingly, is listed as a “Licensed Black Seal boiler operator.”
Chandler is anavid reader and writer, enjoys classical music, ballet and theater, and has traveled to promote peace and the end of hunger in the United States, Latin America, China, USSR, India and Sri Lanka. She is married to Richmond B. Shreve and they have 3 children and 8 grandchildren.
Newtown Friends Meeting is open to the public, with Sunday School classes for adults at 9:45 a.m. and worship based on expectant silence “after the manner of Friends” at 11 a.m.