Fil-Am leader gives back to community
10/27/2011
NEW YORK CITY, NY - Inspired by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s First Lady, The Eleanor Roosevelt Legacy aims to build a new generation of pro-choice democratic women candidates, informed voters and political activists throughout New York.
Filipino community leader Loida Nicolas Lewis received the “Trailblazer of Democracy Award” for her great contribution to then Senator Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2008.
Judith Hope founder of The Eleanor Roosevelt Legacy said, “We honored Lewis today because she’s a great inspiration to so many of us. She’s an outstanding woman of great accomplishment, great compassion. She’s a wonderful example for young women and old women all over the State.”
Lewis said, “As a Filipina, I am very very proud to receive it so that the rest of the Filipinos can say, Yes we can do it!”
Other honorees include US Congresswoman Kathleen Hochul and Citi Foundation’s President and CEO Pamela Flaherty.
New York Senator Charles Schumer said there are now thousands of Filipino nurses in the US saving people’s lives and contributing to the US, thanks to Lewis.
Senator Schumer said, “Loida Lewis is one of the country’s leading Filipino women and 15 years ago when there was a desperate shortage of nurses in this country and the talent of Philippine women to come here and be nurses was being blocked by the same kind of non-thinking approach to immigration that too many exhibit in Washington today, Loida led the charge to change it”.
A graduate of UP Law School in the early 60’s, Lewis was the first Asian, Filipino at that, to pass the New York Bar without attending law school in the US.
After the unexpected death of her husband, Reginald F. Lewis in 1993, Loida stepped into the leadership role of the company he built, as Chair and CEO of TLC Beatrice - where she turned the company around into what it is today.
Lewis ranked number 1 among the "Top 50 Women Business Owners in America" by Working Woman Magazine in 1994.
She also served as the General Attorney in the US Immigration and Naturalization Service and co-authored “How to Get a Greencard,” now on its 9th edition, it continues to be a bestseller on Amazon.com.
In her hometown in Sorsogon, Bicol in the Philippines she founded the Lewis College - offering pre-K through college education.
She also funded the microfinance “People’s Alternative Livelihood of Sorsogon,’ uplifting at least 20,000 families out of poverty.
“God has been so good to me, he has given me so many benefits and advantages, we have to give back, we have to share and that’s what I’m doing," Lewis said.
An amazing community leader today, Lewis has focused her energies on many issues and advocacies concerning the Filipino community - including overseas absentee voting, the Philippine’s claim to the Spratly Islands and the US Pinoys for Good Governance.
For being a successful Filipino businesswoman, a socially responsible community leader and a trailblazer, Loida Nicolas Lewis is a Filipino Champion.
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