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Sarasota News Leader January 24, 2014 Page 77 That message will resound at this Saturday's World Peace Day, where Pearlman and Jacci Tutt, one of the Network's founding members and a founding board member of Sarasota United for Responsibility, will be presented with the Center for Religious Tolerance's Elisabeth Schilder Award for Courage in Religious Tolerance. Pearlman adds that she was "tickled" when she found out about the recognition. Tutt says she was "shocked" to be given an award named for a German schoolteacher who challenged Hitler's racial policies after Kristallnacht. For Tutt, the idea of uniting female voices is particularly urgent. "We found that the women were the ones we could rely on for peacemaking," she says, "because you guys seem to be messing everything up." According to Pearlman, men are welcome at the Network's public events, and they frequently ask to join the organization, but Pearlman instead pushes them to form their own group. Keeping the organization centered around women's connectedness is vital, she says. "Nobody's vying to be the alpha dog, which happens with men. It's a level playing field. We want to be friends. We don't want to be adversaries. We don't want to be in competition." But, "it would be cool to see men doing it," she adds. "Then we could have a prom." Arlene Pearlman will be honored on Jan. 25. Photo by Barney Sack, courtesy Arlene Pearlman The Schilder Award is only part of World Peace Day, organized by the South West Florida Coalition for Peace and Justice. Activists Zoltán Glück and Manissa McCleave Maharawal will deliver a keynote speech on the future of Occupy Wall Street, which has engineered a series of interesting and provocative programs since the movement was kicked out of Zuccotti Park in late 2011. One example: Occupy Sandy, a do-it-yourself emergency response movement that formed to help those affected by Hurricane Sandy in the fall of 2012. Another: Rolling Jubilee, a program that buys up American debt for pennies on the dollar and then abolishes it. Having raised $680,000, Jubilee has already eliminated $14.7 million in debt. Tutt sees a big difference in how open to diversity Sarasota residents have become. She moved here 20 years ago. Even local plays and shows have become more diverse, she says, but challenges remain. Racially, "the diversity is there," she points out, but we aren't tapping There will also be a panel discussion, modinto it the way we need to. erated by WMNF's Rob Lorei and made up of