Suzanne Brooks
Jackie Wright hosts "Our Media Matter" a community service vent produced by Wright Enterprises honoring
the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre and the San Francisco Bayview Newspaper (Jackie Wright, Stephen Anthony Jones and Jerry Vurek. Photo by Malaika Kambon, People's Eye Photography).
San Francisco -Having the respect of fellows is an indication of the value of one's work. Recently Jackie Wright of Wright Enterprises was honored with accolades from a fellow activist, Suzanne Brooks of Sacramento.
"It's the thought that counts but it is action that makes the difference," said Jackie Wright, founder of Wright Enterprises. "I am so honored that Suzanne Brooks, a well-respected artist and activist thought my work should be honored. Thank you, Suzanne, for putting action to your thoughts!"
Brooks nomination of Wright included the following write up:
Jackie Wright has been a longtime servant of the Bay Area Community since 1990 when she joined the ranks of the American Red Cross Bay Area Chapter. Her philosophy of "giving back to the community" has been demonstrated in her roles at the American Red Cross, San Francisco Unified School District, CBS 5/KPIX/CW Bay Area TV and as the principal of Wright Enterprises.
While at the American Red Cross among her other duties that included being a spokesperson during local and national disasters, Jackie Wright created community partnerships that included a training program with the San Francisco Fire Department that gave fire-fighters a humanitarian perspective of Red Cross disaster services that extended beyond putting out fires. Additionally, she established a relationship with the Chinese Hospital in San Francisco to train 300 monolingual Chinatown Residents in disaster preparedness. Extending the arms of the Red Cross to meet the needs of people in dire times was the motivation of her day-to-day work, where she received the highest Red Cross employee award, "The Tiffany Award" for her management and leadership.
While an executive at the American Red Cross Bay Area Chapter, Wright took on the responsibility of President of AWRT-American Women in Radio and Television and created the "Belva Davis Diversity Scholarship" as a way to give back beyond her work.
Wright's disaster services expertise was immediately utilized at San Francisco Unified School District as the threat of planes possibly deployed to San Francisco came on the early morning of 9-11-2001. Wright had oversight for getting the message out to the parents of over 50,000 students and to the 7,000 employees that school had been canceled for safety reasons. In addition to oversight of the initial communication plan, Wright created a humanitarian response for then Superintendent of SFUSD to assuage racism against Muslim students and employees. Wright came up with the concept and wrote the speech that was aired over the KALW airwaves and throughout the District's intercom system that there would be a zero-tolerance of any hate speech or violence against the District's Muslim community. Open communication was the philosophy she displayed that resulted in the overhauling of the District's website to provide meaningful information and 360 communication between the District and its families. Her mantra of multicultural service was marked by the creation of a district calendar that was not only in English, but also Chinese and Spanish, giving parents easier access to keep on track to help their children's progress.
The Viacom Company in its "Social Responsibility Report" recognized Wright's work at CBS5/KPIX/CW Bay Area TV nationally. Wright was recognized for creating public service announcements that honored local heroes such as Belva Davis, Cecil Williams and Shawn Richards of Brothers Against Guns. Wright who served as Public Affairs Manager for the CW Bay Area side of the house was responsible for both stations community outreach to underserved populations and she created and developed ethnic celebrations that brought members of Asian, Black and Latino communities into the station headquarters, allowing access as never before. The celebrations are still held annually at KPIX. Wright made sure that the public service announcements for the various ethnic celebrations were multicultural, i.e. white community leaders were highlighted recognizing Black community leaders; Asian community leaders heralded Latino community leaders; Latino community leaders gave homage to Black community leaders, etc. Wright also stretched her small community outreach budget to extend to underserved groups beyond just giving "air time" for public service announcements which she thought was nothing more than giving people what was theirs. The airwaves are public and the FCC mandate of 1934 called for broadcasters to "serve in the public interest." Wright considered the ROI that broadcasters received in the millions of dollars in advertising was earned when a financial investment is made in community.
Ted Fang, Publisher of Asian Week described working with Wright:
"The Asian Heritage Street Celebration was started in 2004, and we could not have gotten off the ground as an instant success without the great commitment, expertise and skills that Ms. Wright offered us.
At the time, Ms. Wright was Public Affairs Manager at CBS5/CW Bay Area, and made the decision for the station to sign on as a major media sponsor. As such, she became a champion of AHSC within her station and she wrote and produced several public service announcements (psas) for the first and second annual AHSC. The public service videos were professional and effective. They resulted in over 50,000 people attending our first ever event, and that number grew to 80,000 our second year. In particular, the first year, we had little promotional material and she was able to gather news clip videos and our limited visuals to produce professional effective thirty second and fifteen second videos in a short turnaround time."
(CONTINUE HERE FROM PRLOG.ORG ARTICLE https://www.prlog.org/12654313)
From the establishment of Wright Enterprises in 2007, Jackie Wright set out to build a company that gives back to the community. Her website www.wrightnow.biz states "community service is the foundation to good business." Community service has been the theme of the company with Wright taking on communication challenges for the underserved.
She was instrumental in helping Marin County create Marin Clean Energy as it fought a formidable energy opponent. Of Jackie Wright, Dawn Weisz of Marin Clean Energy says, "Her dedication and follow through are noteworthy. We were extremely fortunate to have her involved in communications and public education about the early launch of our program."
Wright's "Community Spotlight" has filled the gap when mainstream media with diminished newsrooms have been too busy or unconcerned about grass root issues of the community. Wright has taken on tough subjects such as the housing crisis:
http://www.wrightnow.biz/apps/articles/web/articleid/49076/columnid//default.asp
http://www.christianideas.com/web/articleid/82647/category/general/default.asp
Her work has extended to Alameda County and underserved populations helping promote demonstrations and rallies.
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/east_bay&id=7914713
http://ncic-justiceandpeace.blogspot.com/2010/07/
As communication is a key element of work and she understands the power of media, Wright has worked with the Oakland International Film Festival in Alameda County and the San Francisco Black Film Festival in San Francisco in order to build their brands to provide the multicultural link for various communities to better understand each other. Knowing the work of Asian UCLA Law Professor Jerry Kang "Trojan Horses of Race" (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=627381 ) that indicates racism is created by TV news and quoting it often, Wright is dedicated to all communities seeing the best of communities unlike themselves so that they can flourish together harmoniously.
Oakland International Film Festival:
http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2008/10/09/oakland-international-film-festival-rolls-out-the-red-carpet/
https://www.prlog.org/11844368-oakland-international-film-festival-closing-easter-sunday-night-at-the-oakland-museum.html
San Francisco International Film Festival
http://sfbayview.com/2016/06/jeff-adachis-america-needs-a-racial-facial-screens-saturday-june-18-as-san-francisco-black-film-festival-provides-thought-provoking-films-and-panels/
https://www.prlog.org/11874482-san-francisco-black-film-festival-opens-at-historic-lorraine-hansberry-theatre-in-union-square.html
Additionally, Wright is working to expand film contacts between Durban, South Africa and the Bay Area:
http://www.durbanfilmoffice.co.za/NewsArticle?news=132
https://www.prlog.org/12606190-historic-ca-trade-mission-to-durban-south-africa-yields-durban-film-mart-call.html
A great deal of the work that flows through Wright Enterprises and W.E. Community Spotlight has been pro bono. Jackie Wright, an associated press award winning journalist, producer of an Emmy Award winning program, an award winning education public relations expert, and recipient of several community service awards, would say "a good deed is its own reward," but I
Would add that her type of dedication is worthy of community recognition and a tribute to help her continue to "give back to community."
And her serving as a pro bono moderator during San Francisco's Small Business Week 2017 is just another indicator: https://sanfranciscosmallbusinesswe2017.sched.com/jackie_wright.1wla5iqq
"One of the benefits of such community nominations is that you get a glimpse of yourself through the eyes of others," said Wright. "I extend accolades to organization small and large that give back to the community by recognizing unsung and sung heroes. It spurs us and others on to do even greater things.
Wright's most recent projects include The San Francisco Black Film Festival which headlined actor and humanitarian Danny Glover's "93 Days" a film by Steve Gukas (https://www.prlog.org/12646459) and San Francisco Supervisor Malia Cohen's historic work with the African American Tobacco Leadership Council and other advocates that yielded the lifesaving ban on menthol and other flavored tobacco products (http://www.naatpn.org/single-post/2017/05/03/AATCLC-stands-with-San-Franciscos-Malia-Cohen-as-she-introduces-city-wide-ordinance-to-restrict-the-sale-of-menthol).
More about Wright Enterprses can be found at www.wrightnow.biz.
Suzanne Brooks' work can be found at https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/suzannebrooks4 and https://www.womenworldculture.com/.