***Read about the STAR Honorees of the Southern Province, North America “Lighting the Way UWD Fundraiser!”
Read the tributes, Celebration Dinner program and a list of event sponsors here: 2023 Moravian Star Honorees (Rev 3-22-24)
In January 2023, the Herrnhut Star Company in Herrnhut, Germany donated 200 green and purple Moravian stars to support a UWD fundraiser in the Southern Province in the USA. Donations from individuals, organizations, groups and churches for the stars provided support for women through scholarships for education, access to food, healthcare, economic security, human rights and leadership in families, church and community all over the world.
The stars traveled about 4500 miles distance and arrived in Winston-Salem where UWD friends and supporters “sponsored” stars in honor or in memory of women who shared hope or worked for justice in their homes, churches, communities, and the worldwide Moravian Church. Volunteers assembled them, walked them through Salem from Home Moravian Church to the Old Salem Museums & Gardens Visitor Center, and they were displayed in the tall windows of the center during October.
Posters that included tributes and bios of the Star Honorees were displayed with the stars. Tributes to Elizabeth Marx, who influenced the lives of thousands of students at Colego Morava in Bluefields, Nicaragua, to Virginia “Pete” Crater, the heart and soul of the Chicken Pie group at Fries Memorial Moravian Church, and to Joyce Carter, “shelter paraclete” who “through her gift for guiding others led throngs of people to love boldly and reach out to the disenfranchised children of God” were included in the nearly 200 bios and tributes that lined the windows of the Old Salem Visitor Center in October.
Now these stars have been dispersed, and they hang in churches, homes and offices, most in the Southern Province in North America. Light shines through the green and purple paper points, honoring and remembering a constellation of women and lending support, inspiration and hope to women in more than 27 provinces, mission provinces and mission areas. Green and purple have been the colors of the International Women’s Day Movement since the early 1900s, green symbolizing hope and purple symbolizing justice. The green and purple stars are special editions of a limited edition environmental series created by the Herrnhut Star Company.
The women honored in this booklet are mostly from the Southern Province in the USA because that is where this fundraiser took place. We know that for each woman honored here, there is an entire constellation of other women (and men) who helped her become a shining star for others.
You are welcome to download and print or share the booklet linked below. If there is a girl or woman you would like to honor, please send us a picture and a profile, and we can include her on our Facebook page, our website, or in our Unity Women’s Voices newsletter.
Special thanks to Kay Windsor, of New Philadelphia Moravian Church in Winston-Salem, NC, who created the tribute posters and edited them into this booklet! And to all the friends and supporters who made this fundraiser a success and also took the time to honor so many special women. THANK YOU! ASANTE! GRACIAS! DANKE!
Read the tributes, Celebration Dinner program and a list of event sponsors here: 2023 Moravian Star Honorees (Rev 3-22-24)