Nonprofit Leader to Serve as Ƶ U. Commencement Speaker
Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank’s Joyce Rothermel will deliver commencement address and receive honorary degree at May 14 ceremony
Ƶ University is pleased to announce that Joyce Rothermel, co-founder and chief executive officer of the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank, will provide the commencement address at its Saturday, May 14, commencement ceremony. The University’s ceremony will begin at 11 a.m. in the Salvitti Gymnasium at the Katherine Mabis McKenna Center which is located on Ƶ University’s hilltop campus in Greensburg, Pa.
A tireless crusader against hunger for more than three decades, Rothermel oversees the region’s largest charitable hunger relief organization. Rothermel will receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Ƶ University.
Rothermel’s life is dedicated to eliminating hunger at the local, and national, level. Serving as chief executive officer of the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank since 1987, Rothermel leads the organization with boundless energy. She managed the organization’s move through four locations and helped annual food distribution grow 20-fold.
The Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank works with a network of 380 member agencies operating food pantries, soup kitchens, after-school programs and shelters located throughout the 11 county region of southwestern Pennsylvania to distribute 23.5 million pounds of food annually.
In 2000, Feeding America, the national food bank network, named the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank the “Food Bank of the Year” and the nonprofit organization was awarded the first Alfred W. Wishart Jr. Award for Excellence in Nonprofit Management from the Forbes Funds.
In addition to her leadership with the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank, Rothermel recently completed an eight year term on the Board of Directors of Feeding America. She serves on the Advisory Board of Directors for Pittsburgh Cares and Pittsburgh Storehouse for Teachers and is treasurer for the Pittsburgh Haiti Solidarity Committee, chair of the Government Relations Committee of the Pennsylvania Association of Regional Food Banks and chair of the Church of Renewal Committee of the Association of Pittsburgh Priests. Rothermel is an active member of the Executive Directors Forum of Feeding America, Leadership Pittsburgh X, Just Harvest, Bread for the World, Amnesty International and the Thomas Merton Center.
Named a Distinguished Daughter of Pennsylvania in 2007, Rothermel also received the Frieda Shapira Medal for Excellence in Nonprofit Leadership in 2008. On April 7, as part of the 38th Annual Art Rooney Awards Dinner, Rothermel achieved the John E. McGrady Award for community service, sponsored by the Catholic Youth Association of Pittsburgh.
Rothermel, a member of Saint James Parish in Wilkinsburg, Pa., earned her Bachelor of Science degree in education from Saint John College and her Master of Science degree in education from the University of Dayton.